Extended Remote Laboratories: A Systematic Review of the Literature From 2000 to 2022

Abstract

Remote Laboratories (RLs) break barriers in education since they provide real experimentation anytime and anywhere. However, their greatest drawback is the lack of immersion. However, Extended Reality (XR) can overcome this shortcoming through the integration of AR, or VR techniques, into remote experimentation, thus developing Extended Reality Remote Laboratories (XRLs), which can be Augmented Reality Remote Laboratories (ARLs), or Virtual Reality Remote Laboratories (VRLs). Our study consists in a systematic review concerning the state-of-the-art of XRLs during the period 2000-2022. Findings from the systematic review generated two main results. First, a thorough analysis that reports: a timeline of publications, studies per country, most influential universities, most popular journals and conferences, most cited publications, description of ARLs, description of VRLs, and most notable publications. Secondly, a classification of the XRLs encountered during research, and a proposed architecture for creating XRLs, in order to guide developers wishing to integrate XR into their experiments.

Design, Implementation and Evaluation of Deusto XRL, a Reference Architecture for Extended Remote Laboratories (XRLs)

“…While Deusto XRL encompasses both AR and VR approaches, we opted to develop the prototype using a VR approach for this study, as according to Silva et al [15], VRLs (Virtual Reality Remote Laboratories) have increased in popularity in the last three years thanks to concepts such as the Metaverse and digital twins. It is important to note that the architecture supports a full Extended Reality (XR) approach, but this study exclusively validates the VR component.…”

“…Based on a systematic review of Extended Remote Laboratories from 2000 to 2022 provided by Silva et al [15], we present the most relevant architectures for XRLs published in the last five years (2019-2023) in order to obtain a set of characteristics intrinsic to XRLs, including requirements for their development and challenges that must be solved.…”

“…Digital twins offer both immersion and real data utilization but are underutilized in education. To address these limitations, the development of Extended Remote Laboratories (XRLs) emerged as an innovative solution, integrating immersive experiences and the concept of digital twins [15]. XRLs have been developed and used since 2001 [16]; however, the existing literature on XRLs highlights various shortcomings, including the lack of reusable architectures and dependence on specific software, leading to obsolescence.…”

Incentive Mechanisms of an Experimental Resource-Sharing Platform Considering Reputation Effects for Megaprojects

“…Participating laboratories should strive to improve their resource-sharing output, reduce their input cost of effort, and reduce risk aversion to obtain greater incentive benefits. In addition, with the continuous development of information technology, there are already many remote or virtual laboratories (El-Haleem et al, 2023;Silva et al, 2023;Anirban et al, 2022;Caetano et al, 2022;Jamshidi & Milanovic, 2022). To improve their information technology levels, laboratories need to have the qualifications and capabilities to participate, and in doing so, they are also enhancing their good reputation.…”