Picturing a New Era in Training

VRS HAPSAT brochure

VR Solutions Pty Ltd: Delivering Groundbreaking Visualisation for Hazard Perception and Situational Awareness Training - HAPSAT

VR Solutions case study of a multi channel installation being used in  an integrated Hazard Perception and Situational Awareness Training solution - HAPSAT - using a combination of high performance, powerful visualisation technology with state-of-the-art simulation facilities combined with third party applications.

The Situation

Safety and security have never taken such a high priority on the public agenda than it has today. In the wake of global terrorism, current economic uncertainties and the tide of increasing public awareness of natural and man-made disasters, the mounting demand from the public and private sector for greater efficiencies and safety measures has become paramount.

Advances in visualisation and simulation technology are opening up new possibilities for governments and business to meet these demands - creating training environments that significantly enhance a person’s ability to handle hazardous situations as well as improving procedures for day-to-day operations.

Traditional testing and training methods, such as physical mock-ups, are costly, time-consuming, and have limited effectiveness. Mock-ups are not feasible if they present a physical danger to trainees. It is not possible, for example, to set fire to an actual airport runway or terminal in order to run emergency training drills. It costs the equivalent of AUD$100,000 to produce each fully trained train driver in Europe and takes up to 11 months with a minimum of 300 ‘real time’ hours required to meet the stringent safety requirements.

Using visualisation technology, the cost and time required to train each staff person is drastically reduced and scenarios considered too dangerous to reproduce in the real world are now possible through virtual recreations of live situations.

The Solution - HAPSAT

VR Solutions (VRS) provided the display hardware for  an integrated Hazard Perception and Situational Awareness Training solution – HAPSAT - using a combination of high performance, powerful visualisation technology with state-of-the-art simulation facilities and software.

The role of this simulation based training is to provide organisations with safe, controllable, repeatable and measurable ways to prepare their staff for all manner of potentially dangerous situations, presented as close to ‘real-life’ as possible.

Government - Homeland security

Recent terrorist incidents, increasing cultural unrest and a constantly changing global environment is creating an ever-growing need for better homeland security measures. Using HAPSAT technology, government agencies and forces can better plan and prepare for any manner of unforeseen incidents - such as national guard response to terrorist threats, biological threats, or even natural disasters.

Military/Defence

Defence forces also benefit from this visualisation technology. VRS offers military forces the potential to train people in, and understand the outcomes of, ‘real-life’ tactical decision-making, control of battlefield situations, harbour/airfield security etc. HAPSAT visualisation technology is an answer to the need for real-time situational awareness for the command and control centres of military operations.

Transport sector

Transport organisations in any country are constantly under scrutiny for operational efficiencies and safety standards. VRS are able to help transport organisations and departments more effectively and cost-efficiently meet quality control needs. The group training capabilities of HAPSAT means large numbers of staff can benefit from realistic training scenarios. Whether it’s rail, road or shipping transport networks, VRS provides a completely realistic environment to rehearse all manner of day-to-day procedures and enhance abilities to deal with unforeseen hazards – i.e. signal failures, track floods, fires, docking for ships coming into harbour.

Airport Operators

Air safety probably gains more concern and visibility than any other transport industry. Whether its dealing with emergency landing, maintaining flight safety in snow, ice or poor visibility, mid-air collisions or general airport security, staff need to be highly trained in operational procedures and proficient in dealing with any number of potential problems. VRS technology plays a vital role in helping aerospace organisations enhance airport efficiency and security, through training simulations based on airport, control tower equipment and traffic flow environments.

Oil + Gas Mining + exploration

Competency Assurance is a hot topic in the exploration industry. Past incidents, such as the North Sea Piper Alpha disaster, have resulted in the stringent safety and security procedures we see today. But the complexity of this industry’s physical environment makes training and testing difficult and costly in the effort to meet these safety assurances. VRS’s technology provides a groundbreaking way of running test-case scenarios - whether its reconstruction of incidents such as gas leaks, refinery fires or underground emergencies where you have only seconds to react; offshore platform operational procedures or familiarisation for new staff. Emergency Service

State authorities cannot feasibly physically re-create full-scale disasters just to train or assess emergency response team capabilities. But they can get closer to ‘real-life’ testing, using HAPSAT technology. In these virtual enviroments  companies can build virtual, interactive scenarios designed to test the responses and decision-making skills of fire, police and ambulance crews. HAPSAT offers emergency services a safe and cost effective method of training response teams in all types of situations and in ever-changing environmental circumstances – whether it be a multi-car road accident, a truck overturned on a freeway, a spill from an oil tanker or perhaps a forest fire.

Entertainment/Civic Facilities

Handling safety procedures and operational planning around civic events is no mean feat. For instance, how would organisers of sports events test a stadium fire evacuation plan? Proving a safety procedure by physically filling a stadium, setting it alight and running a crowd control exercise is just not a realistic option. Through HAPSAT technology, safety managers have the ability to train staff to deal with any kind of glitch in operational situations or potentially hazardous incidents.

How HAPSAT Works

A HAPSAT facility would typically provide a total training capability that includes:

• VR Solutions ( VRS )  immersive display technologies.
• VR Solutions ( VRS)  re-configurable Hazard Perception Unit and classroom
• State-of-the-art simulator capability/control interfaces (e.g. to create trains, fire engines, jet planes, buildings)
• The potential for a networked training capability

At the heart of the visualisation environment is the immersive ‘wraparound’ display system. This system is specifically designed to immerse individuals and teams in the training simulation, creating presence and resultant proven benefits in learning and performance outcomes. This system integrates with the simulation and management modules to enable effective creation of training scenarios, giving users a completely immersive and realistic experience.

Scenario Creation

A significant amount of planning goes into scripting the type of events that unfold within a HAPSAT training environment. Demanding scenarios require great subtleties to reliably reflect real world circumstances.

These complex scenarios are designed to be fully interactive and programmed to cover any situation and to respond to a trainee’s decision making with different outcomes. For example, in an emergency service scenario, the creators will have exact control over elements introduced into that situation; changes in weather, the sequence of events, even the time of day. The ultimate aim is to make the situation as unpredictable to the student as a real life incident would be.

For the duration of any project, VRS are committed to continuous on-site support and regular scenario library development to keep the training environment up to date and to provide new situations to trainees.

Collaboration

Traditional training methods are linear. Emergency procedures are rehearsed and followed individually, and rely on assumptions that everybody else is doing their part correctly. Consequently, there is a large margin of error whenever and where ever there is a break in the chain of response, something that is potentially life threatening.

For the first time, individuals can now collaborate in an immersive and highly visual environment. HAPSAT enables interactive group education, allowing larger numbers of people to work together, sharing and learning from each other as they experience different training situations. Such an approach improves the efficiency of training, while at the same time encouraging greater team work and problem solving as individuals are made aware of others thoughts and actions when responding to specific situations.

Measurement

A methodology for the measurement of training scenarios is also provided to evaluate the trainee’s performance in each simulation and immersive display environment.

The Statistics...

The number of what the U.S. government considers “significant” attacks grew to about 655 last year (2005). Washington Post Staff Writer. Wednesday, April 27, 2005; Page A01

People aged between 18 and 44 were most likely to have been injured on a road (36%), or at work (79,000 or 31%). The workplace was the most commonly reported location for accidents or injuries that had been sustained by people in the 45 to 64 year age group (42%), while older Australians (aged 65 and over) were as likely to have injured themselves at home, on the road or at work. Source: 1998 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, ABS.
http://www.abs.gov.au/ © Commonwealth of Australia

An ABS survey conducted in 1998 showed that almost two-thirds (64%) of adults in Australia who had a disability as a result of accident or injury, listed the workplace or a road as the accident site.