Use of VR/AR techniques in Remote Laboratories: a systematic review

Abstract

Educational technology is now a necessity for teaching and learning and this necessity became even bigger with the pandemic of COVID-19, where many students can't access the facilities of their educational centers. Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Remote Laboratories are great trends for the future of education. While remote laboratories bring the opportunity of access to experimentation that many students don't have, VR/AR provides an immersion that completely changes the user's experience. These tools bring several opportunities for the classroom, mainly when working with STEAM subjects. Therefore, this paper seeks to verify the current situations of integration of VR/AR techniques in remote laboratories presented in research papers. Through systematic research, the authors researched open access papers published in the last five years (period 2017-2021). The databases chosen were IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, and Scopus. After finding the papers, it was possible to identify successful situations of integration of VR/AR techniques in remote laboratories and also to verify expectations and trends for VR/AR integrated to remote laboratories that the authors of these papers presented. After the publishing of this paper, the authors will seek to research further on VR/AR and remote laboratories to develop research projects and educational software.