Signature of the partnership between Jean-Michel DUREPAIRE, Director of ESTACA Campus Ouest and Hugues DOUILLET, President of CLARTE
Crédits photos : ESTACA
ESTACA, an engineering school for new mobilities, and CLARTE, a technological resource centre specialized in Virtual and Augmented Reality, are creating a common research team to develop virtual reality technologies in transport systems.
Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies are increasingly being used in many areas including transport for maintenance, training and marketing for example. The team’s objective is to accelerate the deployment of these technologies for the design and development of new transport systems and on-board experiences.
Innovative transport system thanks to VR/AR
The name of the new research team is V-REMOTE, which stands for Virtual REality for Mobility Transportation user Experience. V-REMOTE’s ambition is to contribute to the use of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) for the development of tomorrow’s transport system, through research and training activities. It aims to help develop new generation transport systems that are cleaner, safer, more pleasant, more intuitive and more adaptable thanks to the use of VR/AR technologies, especially for the on-board experience.
A structuring partnership for the use of VR/AR in the development of transport systems
At the research level, national or European collaborative research projects will be set up. In terms of training, study projects will be proposed to students in order to prepare them for the use of these technologies which will be increasingly used in the industry of the future.
In addition, an axes of valorisation of virtual reality is planned on a local, national and international scale with the organisation of thematic days on the subject. This partnership reinforces the excellence of the Laval agglomeration on virtual reality.
Three projects launched to initiate collaboration
An educational project to help the user choose the interior of his vehicle in virtual reality
CLARTE proposes an educational project to 3rd year ESTACA students to develop a robotic arm capable of reproducing any type of surface geometry. Equipped with a virtual reality headset and a polymorphic actuator, the user touches in virtual the surface of an object and the deformable actuator in real life. This technology could be used to test the materials of a passenger compartment (car, plane, train…) in order to help the user choose the comfort of his vehicle before the development of a prototype.
A research thesis to conceive the virtual prototype
L’ESTACA is currently hosting a PhD student, who is working on the “Advanced driver-assistance systems development methodology using virtual reality”. The aim of his thesis is to facilitate the development of driving assistance functions for autonomous vehicles using virtual reality so that the user can test the various options virtually before the vehicle is built.
VISION’R: a student virtual reality flight simulator project
ESTACA’s Flying west student association is developing a virtual reality flight simulator on a jack structure to live a unique and immersive flight experience to train pilots. The students are already working with CLARTE for the development of this simulator.
The Vision’R team presented a draft of its project for the first time in public at the ESTACA open day at the end of January 2020.
