{"id":30674,"date":"2026-06-02T09:08:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T07:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/?p=30674"},"modified":"2026-06-02T09:08:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T07:08:41","slug":"the-future-of-engineering-education-learning-through-virtual-reality-and-digital-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/?p=30674","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Engineering Education: Learning through Virtual Reality and Digital Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

What the future of engineering education may look like could be seen these days in the laboratories of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade. Students and researchers from Serbia, Italy and Estonia are using virtual reality, robots and digital twins to jointly develop new learning models that could significantly transform the way future mechanical engineers are educated.<\/p>\n

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The University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering has recently hosted and international workshop as part of the Erasmus+ project XREN (Extended Reality Tools to Support Learning Activities in Engineering), which focuses on the development of innovative extended reality (XR) methods and applications for the education of mechanical engineering students. The project is jointly implemented by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade, Politecnico di Milano, Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), and the National Research Council of Italy – Institute of Intelligent Industrial Systems and Technologies for Advanced Manufacturing (CNR-STIIMA).<\/p>\n

According to prof. dr \u017divana Jakovljevi\u0107, the project coordinator on behalf of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the initiative has been running for three years. It began in 2023 and will conclude in August this year. Its primary objective is the development of innovative learning pathways for mechanical engineering students, with a particular focus on production engineering. As prof. dr Jakovljevi\u0107 explained, ten different learning pathways covering specific thematic areas have been developed so far.<\/p>\n

As part of the project, the workshop is hosted each year by a different partner institution. The first workshop was held in Tallinn, last year\u2019s event took place in Milan, while Belgrade is hosting this year\u2019s edition. The workshop brings together 12 students from Milan, five students from Estonia and five students from the Production Engineering programme at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, alongside researchers from the partner institutions.<\/p>\n

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Through collaborative laboratory assignments and workshops, students have the opportunity to use and test the developed applications while exchanging experiences related to learning in a digital environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecifically, students can work on the development of a digital twin of a flexible electro-pneumatic assembly cell. For the purposes of the project, a digital model of this cell was previously created and integrated into a virtual reality environment. Students can now control the system through its digital twin while simultaneously observing its operation in a virtual environment,\u201d prof. dr \u017divana Jakovljevi\u0107 explained.<\/p>\n

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She further noted that, within the robotic assembly cell, a so-called digital shadow has also been developed, enabling everything that happens within the real system \u2013 including the assembly process itself \u2013 to be monitored in real time in a virtual environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering we have developed a dedicated learning pathway designed to support the acquisition of assembly operation sequencing skills,\u201d prof. Jakovljevi\u0107 added.<\/p>\n

One of the project participants from CNR-STIMA, Dr Walter Terkaj, also shared his impressions of the workshop, emphasising that he was particularly pleased that the project\u2019s final major event was being held in Belgrade.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are delighted that the project\u2019s final major event is taking place here in Belgrade and that we have received such exceptional hospitality from our partners. Everything is progressing very successfully, and we are looking forward to bringing the project to a successful conclusion. As for the project outcomes, we have been conducting research into XR technologies, particularly in educational settings involving students. Everything we have developed and implemented will be made publicly available online so that anyone interested can benefit from the results of our project,\u201d dr Terkaj stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What the future of engineering education may look like could be seen these days in the laboratories of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade. Students and researchers from Serbia, Italy and Estonia are using virtual reality, robots and digital twins to jointly develop new learning models that could significantly transform the way future mechanical engineers are educated. The University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering has recently hosted and international workshop as part of the Erasmus+ project XREN (Extended Reality Tools to Support Learning Activities in Engineering), which focuses on the development of innovative extended reality (XR) methods and applications for the education of mechanical engineering students. The project is jointly implemented by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in\u2026 \u043e\u043f\u0448\u0438\u0440\u043d\u0438\u0458\u0435…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":30579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30675,"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30674\/revisions\/30675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vesti.mas.bg.ac.rs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}