Immersive and Interactive Digital Twins to Train Engineering Students

Abstract

Immersive Digital Twins (IDT) have many advantages for training en-gineering students in the use of industrial machines. Some of the advantages are practical, such as avoiding the need to buy machines that are very expensive to maintain, saving energy and journeys. There are also advantages in terms of learning, since immersion improves performance for certain types of content. In addition, immersive environments now make it possible to integrate intelligent virtual agents, thanks to the development of language models. These new possi-bilities will undoubtedly lead to new forms of teaching in engineering schools. Most of the researches are focused on optimizing course situations. However, there is currently a lack of research regarding their impact on the learners inde-pendent study, and on the role of the teachers in the use of these devices.