Metaverse for Intelligent Asset Management

Abstract

Industries are utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital technologies to facilitate asset management. Increased implementation of AI and digital technologies requires new concepts to facilitate and simplify the Human- System-Interaction (HSI) in industrial contexts. One of the concepts for improving the HSI is by enabling a multi-space environment that integrates the physical space and the virtual space. Such a multi-space environment, materialised as metaverse, aims to augment the interaction between liveware, software, and hardware. In industry, the concept of metaverse can be used to facilitate various industrial processes, such as asset management, operation, and maintenance. One of the main challenges when enabling a metaverse in industrial contexts is the aspect of visualisation of physical and virtual assets. Asset visualisation can be supported through various emerging technologies such as gaming technology, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and eXtented Reality (XR).In this paper, the applicability of such advanced technologies i.e., eXtended Reality (XR) have been reviewed for the asset management within various industrial domains. To carry out this research work, literature review has been conducted related to available XR technologies and their applications within the industries. It has been found that these technologies are available, but not applied in industrial asset management. Thus, the aim of this paper is to describe the developed Metaverse for asset management to enhance the operation and maintenance processes in industrial contexts utilising AI, digitalisation, and XR technologies.The developed Metaverse has been verified using a case study in railway using railway’s digital assets within eMaintenance LAB. The practical implication of the findings from this work will benefit in increased efficiency and effectiveness of the operation and maintenance processes in various industrial domains.