Convergence of Virtual Reality and Digital Twin technologies to enhance digital operators’ training in industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 technologies enable the generation of added value throughout the production process. Among them, Digital Twins (DT) allow the modelization of cyber–physical systems in the virtual world and Virtual Reality (VR) allows an immersive perspective of the behavior of industrial equipment in a digitized environment. The combination of DT and VR can generate a digital platform for operators’ training where the industrial operator can perceive a more realistic environment for digital learning. In this paper, we introduce the convergence of DT and VR to enhance the digital learning process of driving an industrial mobile robot. To validate this proposal, an experimental methodology looking for measuring the transfer of skills from digital training into the real world has been set. This experiment consists of handling a mobile robot in a predefined course looking for committing the lowest number of failures in the minimum possible time. The experiment has been carried out by defining three different training methods: training with real equipment as the control group and two different experimental groups following digital training (VR and computer application-supported techniques). The abilities of their subjects have been measured in the initial and final stages of the experiment showing an improvement of 47% through real training, 38% through VR and 28% through the computer application. Results demonstrate the utility of using DT to attain significant digital learning and validate the initial hypothesis demonstrating the enhancement of digital learning through VR-supported training. •Convergence of digital twins and virtual reality for digital operators’ training.•Development of a digital training platform to integrate technologies of Industry 4.0.•Measurement and comparison of the skills acquired through digital and real training.•Proof of digital methods to improve the operators’ abilities and users’ experience.