RUTHMANN provided the ideas for a project work for Master’s students in the Media Informatics course at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences in Gelsenkirchen, Bocholt and Recklinghausen , Germany. In the course of study, the students were to develop a concept and a demonstrator for an easier and intuitively usable STEIGER® control system. No sooner said than done: Can Ata, Soufian Kaddouri, Hannah Jürgens, Maria Schreider and Max Schulte took up the challenge, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Jens Gerken (the similarity in name with the rental company Gerken GmbH is coincidental).
Based on a handheld device, the socalled indicator, the working platforms can be controlled intuitively. All you have to do is point to the desired location and the STEIGER® will take the operator exactly to the desired place. In order to experience the new operation as realistically as possible, users were allowed to put on professional, high-resolution Varjo-XR3 mixed reality goggles, which allow a view of the real working platform and seamlessly integrate it into a virtual environment, for example a rural homestead.
At the end of the project, the students invited a total of 13 test persons to put the simulation “through its paces”: both people who had never operated a truck working platform before and some experienced users. This showed that the operating concept was understood very quickly. Some suggestions for improvement were still found. For example, the feedback on the integrated screen of the control unit could still be improved.
The students have now successfully completed their Master’s project and, on top of that, won first place in the DIVR XR Science Award in the Best Tech category.
The project team convinced us with their structured, professional approach to analysis, conceptualisation and virtual realisation and far exceeded our expectations for results. We will continue to pursue the visionary but thoroughly realistic solution concept in future STEIGER® developments.
The indicator makes it child’s play to steer the working platform to the desired location: Aim at the target and the control system takes the work platform to the desired location. A project of the Westphalian University in cooperation with RUTHMANN.