CORVETTE: Collaborative Environment for Technical Training andExperiment

Rozenn BOUVILLE BERTHELOT∗, Thomas LOPEZ, Florian NOUVIALE, Valerie GOURANTON and Bruno ARNALDI

IRISA/INSA de Rennes

ABSTRACT

The CORVETTE project aims at producing significant innovationsin the field of collaborative virtual training. For that purpose,CORVETTE combines various technologies to enhance the effec-tive collaboration between users and virtual humans performing acommon task. First, CORVETTE proposes a model of collabora-tive interaction in virtual environments allowing actors to efficientlycollaborate as a team whether they are controlled by a user or by avirtual human [4]. Moreover, the environment is simulated in real-time, at real scale and is using physics as well as physically-basedhumanoids to improve the realism of the training. Second, thanks tothe interaction model, we defined a protocol of exchange of avatars[5, 3, 2]. Thus, an actor can dynamically exchange the control ofhis/her avatar with the one controlled by another user or by a virtualagent. Moreover, to improve the exchange protocol, we designed anew knowledge model embedded in each avatar. It allows usersand virtual humans to retrieve knowledge previously gathered byan avatar following an exchange. The preservation of knowledgeis indeed especially crucial for teamwork. Finally, we handle ver-bal communication between users and virtual humans with speechrecognition and synthesis. Actors’ knowledge is enhanced throughdialogue and used for decision-making and conversation [1].

Figure 1: The CORVETTE training environment

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the french National Research Agency(ANR) (grant No. ANR-10-CONTINT-CORD-012).

REFERENCES

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∗e-mail: rozenn.bouville berthelot@irisa.fr

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