SERMAS · Socially-acceptable Extended Reality Models and Systems

The revolutionary opportunities opened by eXtended Reality (XR) technologies will only materialize if concepts, techniques, and tools are provisioned to ensure the social acceptance of XR systems. For that, we need XR systems that are not just innovative and functionally complex, but also provide an experience that: satisfies the goals and needs of the user, is in compliance with the social context in which the system is being used, and is transparent, safe, secure, explainable and is trusted by the user. However, current generations of XR systems fail to provide the XR experience they were envisioned for since state-of-the-art models and technologies of XR systems fail to ensure full-fledged social acceptance. A truly XR experience requires a major paradigm shift in the way XR systems are designed, implemented, deployed and consumed. The SERMAS project will develop innovative, formal and systematic methodologies and technologies to model, develop, analyze, test and user-study socially-acceptable XR systems. This will be achieved by pursuing the following four main objectives: 1. Follow an inter-disciplinary, multi-sectorial, case-study-driven, scientific and technological methodology to implement the SERMAS Toolkit, a set of methods and tools that will greatly simplify the design, development, deployment, and management of socially-acceptable XR systems. 2. Apply the Toolkit to industrial case studies drawn from real-world application scenarios, thus paving the way to transferring project results to industrial practice. This will be possible through the active participation in the consortium of the developers of mass-use industrial XR applications. 3. Enable innovators to leverage the Toolkit to improve the social acceptance and cut down the time-to-market of their XR systems, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of the vendors. 4. Produce the wider SERMAS Methodology to position the use of the Toolkit and enlarge its outreach.