Building Security

Virtual reality technology saves lives

By Kelly Ng | 11 February 2010

An accident in a nuclear or petro-chemical plant can result in the loss of many lives and millions of dollars. FutureGov spoke to Lee Jekwon, Technical Consultant, Invensys Operations Management about how virtual reality technologies can help reduce that risk.

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An immersive training solution is now available to provide a highly realistic and safe training environment for process plant personnel. The ‘EYESim’ solution uses virtual reality technologies to create an accurate virtual plant and can simulate limitless emergency scenarios for personnel to train in.

Lee simulated a fire and demonstrated how a field operator must cooperate with the control room to manage the situation. Lee controlled the avatar to climb two flights of stairs to the accident area. The avatar then had to locate and push the alarm button to alert the control room. Lee could move the avatar or change to a first-person full 360-degree view mode to ’see’ from the avatar’s perspective and strategise how best to put out the fire.

The immersive environment was very realistic and included details such as wind direction, day and night lighting, and varying volume of sound effects according to the distance to the object. On screen, Lee showed how the solution draws a boundary around the fire, simulating how the field operator cannot go too close in a real situation.

“Every plant has emergency procedures, detailing what to do should an emergency situation arise. However, in a real fire or other accidents, operators may panic unless they keep current with regular drills and emergency response training,” said Lee.

It is impossible to practise putting out a real fire at a plant. Besides being a high risk area, some plants can be very remote and difficult to access, for instance offshore platforms. Immersive training addresses those limitations.

“The immersive training solution provides a platform for practising team work,” he added. “In an emergency, control room operators make sense of the situation through monitors and feedback from the field operators. So communication is very important.”

Invensys, which provides this technology, estimated that it will take 12 to 14 months to develop a customised virtual plant and will cost approximately US$1 million.

The simulation environment can be shared with first respondents as well. A plant normally has its internal fire-fighting team. However, major accidents may involve fire brigades. With the virtual plant, fire fighters can better evaluate the best point of entry, how to avoid the dangerous equipment, plan their point of attack, and assess whether or not water or foam should be used.

The benefit of having a virtual plant are apparent before the construction of the plant itself. During the design phase, architects can run simulations including information such as the positioning of equipment, ventilation, layout and so on to assess the safety level of the plant. “You reduce risks right from the beginning,” explained Lee.