PhD defence in virtual reality a world first, says Antwerp University
Human intuition can still be a match for artificial intelligence, research shows
Virtual doctor
“As far as we can ascertain, a doctoral defence in virtual reality is a world first,” said Rudi Penne, promoter of Bogaerts’ PhD research within the Op3Mech group, part of the Faculty of Applied Engineering Sciences.
The research group has a special interest in optimisation, or ways that existing procedures can be made more efficient. A lot of effort is going into using computer algorithms and artificial intelligence to do this, but Bogaerts took an alternative approach.
“I was able to demonstrate that human intuition, combined with virtual reality in certain applications, is at least the equivalent of fully algorithmic automation,” he said.
Candid cameras
In particular, he worked on a system to design complex camera networks, for example to effectively monitor the safety of dock workers loading and unloading goods. First the space to be monitored is modelled in virtual reality, then a person uses virtual reality glasses to test the view from any possible observation point, from all possible angles.
“That way it becomes clear which locations are ideal for placing cameras, and which spots remain invisible,” Bogaerts says.
This kind of problem became much less academic last week when five prisoners escaped from Turnhout Prison, apparently by exploiting a camera blind spot. Bogaerts: “That blind spot could have been avoided by using the software that I developed during my doctoral research.”
According to Penne, his work has the more general message that computers can still benefit from a little human help. “A human in the loop can regularly do things that the computer is not, or not yet, able to do, for example when it comes to processing a huge stream of data in real time,” he said.
Photo: UAntwerp
