The European project iv4XR brings together experts from 8 different countries, to research and develop novel ways to test Extended Reality (XR) systems using Artificial Intelligence (AI). XR systems are interactive systems such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), which combines real and virtual environments. These systems can be powerful tools for areas such as medicine (e.g. 3D imaging), entertainment (e.g. video games) and military (e.g. combat training).

The goal is to improve the testing of these systems in terms of functionality and user experience. The project is deploying tools that automate some testing procedures, reducing the current burden of user testing in the XR development process, which still largely requires human testers. It removes barriers from the state of the art processes and empower the development of novel XR systems.

Extended Reality (XR) has limitless possibilities to change both the digital and the real world. However, the development of XR systems is currently a big challenge, as is their verification and validation, which are key steps of the highly iterative development process.
The European joint effort aims to provide XR developers with intelligent test agents that will automatically explore and test their systems, searching for unexpected behaviors, usability concerns and helping refine configurations. Since user experience is an essential part of XR systems, this project also aims to develop socio-emotional AI in test agents to automatically assess the quality of the user experience.

This project is led by an INESC-ID team, coordinated by Rui Prada.

Other members consist of companies representing the XR industry: Gameware Europe Limited (United Kingdom), GoodAI Research SRO (Czech Republic), Thales SIX GTS and Thales AVS (France); universities: Universiteit Utrecht (Netherlands) Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) and Umeå Universitet (Sweden); and the research institute Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Italy). The team combines decades of expertise in advanced interactive systems, AI, and software engineering and testing, and XR development.

For more information: iv4xr-project.eu | Twitter: @iv4xr