Merged physical and virtual reality in collaborative virtual workspaces: The VirCA approach

Recently emerging paradigms of the so called Future Internet induce significant changes in consumer and industrial ICT applications. Remote collaboration in mixed physical and virtual realities made possible thanks to the increasing network bandwidth further empowered by the achievements of Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and Internet of Services. This enticing vision brings benefits for several application fields ranging from STEM education to smart factories. The paper discusses some new possibilities through the VirCA (Virtual Collaboration Arena) framework as a pilot realization. A brief introduction is given to VirCA focusing on the basic concepts and features that make it well suited for collaborative work in mixed virtual and physical reality. Through a concrete life-like example, the paper illustrates the way of involving real industrial devices into remote collaboration scenarios and reviews the typical uses of such a shared infrastructure considering the relationship of the virtual and real entities.