Issues and Challenges in Implementing the Metaverse in the Industrial Contexts from a Human-System Interaction Perspective

The concept of Metaverse is emerging in the industry. Metaverse is expected to be important in industrial asset management and sustainable operation and maintenance. Some of the potentials of implementing Metaverse in the industry can be related to virtual co-creation and design, remote and virtual inspection and maintenance, skills development and training, simulation, safety, and security. Additionally, Metaverse integrated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital technologies will augment human perception, facilitating the Human-System-Interaction (HSI). The traditional HSI carries limitations regarding usability, immersiveness, and connectivity when it comes to the interaction between the virtual, augmented, and real world. An improved HSI in such cyberspace applications may lead to a better understanding of the system and eventually reduced faults. However, implementing Metaverse in industrial contexts is challenging and has not yet been explored thoroughly and systematically. Hence, this paper aims to systematically identify and investigate the various issues and challenges in the implementation of Metaverse in industrial contexts from an HSI perspective. The paper will further provide a taxonomy of these issues and challenges. The research methodology has been based on literature surveys, active and passive observations, and experiments done in the eMaintenanceLAB at Luleå University of Technology. The findings from this paper can be used to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of implementing Metaverse in various industrial contexts.