Connecting the areas of eLearning, virtual training and engineering in multidisciplinary eRobotics applications

The recent trend of Virtual Reality (VR) already found its way into entertainment and scientific applications. While current entertainment domains fully exploit the technical possibilities of modern graphics hardware and state of the art rendering approaches, many VR simulation system in scientific contexts put the focus on numerical results with rather functional representations. The objective of the novel research field of eRobotics is to effectively use electronic media to achieve the best possible advancements in the development of robotics-related applications. Corresponding eRobotics systems take the step from rather functional scientific simulations to attractive demonstrators using VR technologies, which can not only be applied in motivating eLearning scenarios but also in full-featured engineering applications in the context of virtual testbeds and cyber-physical systems. In this paper, we will introduce concepts and system structures that provide new opportunities for the development of a complex but comprehensive multidisciplinary development support tool. A broad range of practical applications in different domains will demonstrate the benefits of connecting the areas of eLearning, virtual training and engineering in a holistic eRobotics system.