ASI program-virtual reality in neutral Buoyancy
Bellomo, Alessandro ; Mascetti, Gabriele ; Benassai, Mario
Jan - 2008
ISBN : 9781615671601

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type: Conference Proceedings

Abstract
One of the facilities available at ALTEC S.p.A. is a Neutral Buoyancy Test Facility (NBTF), facility in which reduced gravity conditions can be simulated. This facility has been extensively utilized for Columbus module design development and verification tests, flight operations development and verification tests as well as for the Eurobot Wet Model robot tests. The Virtual Reality techniques allow to fully submerge a subject in a virtual environment that can be constructed by the development of a CAD 3D model representing the environment and providing to the test subject the proper visualization equipment such to decouple him/her from the surrounding environment. A feasibility study has been developed by ALTEC S.p.A., under an ASI contract, with the aim to investigate the possibility to combine the two above described technologies such to realize a Virtual Reality in Neutral Buoyancy Facility-VRNB that allows to exploit the advantages of the two techniques that have been separately utilized in different application fields. Application fields of the facility mainly pertain to industrial and scientific application scenarios. Purpose of this paper is to present the VRNB program status highlighting also the major achievements together with the future milestones and to provide potential application scenarios.

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