Development Of Virtual Reality Environment For Safety Training

Conventional safety training in industries mostly comprises of unidirectional flow of information. Since most of the employees involved in such training are not learning actively, their response to understanding risks and mitigating them in real time workplace emergency situations is not as effective. This research will be first step towards an effort to study the feasibility of constructive simulations for developing a framework for industrial health and safety to provide employees training in simulated environment and improve their capabilities to take actions in emergencies. The US Department of Defense (DoD) utilizes live, virtual and constructive (LVC) simulations for training military personnel in improving their skills where constructive simulation involves simulated people operating simulated environment. Open simulator will be used to develop virtual and constructive (VC) simulation based training scenarios. It provides stable virtual environment, content portability with no licensing fee. A virtual 3D layout of a building, avatars of people working in the building and various hazards observed in workplace will be simulated in open simulator. A study will be conducted where participants can control avatars to face various safety related scenarios in virtual building environment and feedback will be provided based on their actions