  As robots become increasingly prominent in diverse industrial settings, the
desire for an accessible and reliable system has correspondingly increased.
Yet, the task of meaningfully assessing the feasibility of introducing a new
robotic component, or adding more robots into an existing infrastructure,
remains a challenge. This is due to both the logistics of acquiring a robot and
the need for expert knowledge in setting it up. In this paper, we address these
concerns by developing a purely virtual simulation of a robotic system. Our
proposed framework enables natural human-robot interaction through a visually
immersive representation of the workspace. The main advantages of our approach
are the following: (i) independence from a physical system, (ii) flexibility in
defining the workspace and robotic tasks, and (iii) an intuitive interaction
between the operator and the simulated environment. Not only does our system
provide an enhanced understanding of 3D space to the operator, but it also
encourages a hands-on way to perform robot programming. We evaluate the
effectiveness of our method in applying novel automation assignments by
training a robot in virtual reality and then executing the task on a real
robot.
