19 Sep TUAS introduces Ship Safety Education with VR Technology – ShipSEVR
The ShipSEVR (Ship Engine Safety Education Virtual Reality) was developed Game Lab of the Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) Research Group of Futuristic Interactive Technologies, The research lead by Prof. Dr. Evangelos Markopoulos and Prof. Dr. Mika Luimula in close collaboration with Wärtsilä Sea and Land Academy and ADE Oy.
The ShipSEVR training episode focuses specifically on ship engines and engine rooms safety procedures by integrating Wärtsilä’s has years of experience on ship engines and engine rooms. The delivered learning episode consists of a 3D ship engine room space where trainees are expected to find certain devices and equipment by utilizing the available technical drawings. In the maritine industry specifically, various professions contain work routines in harsh or even hazardous conditions where technical documentation is difficult to read. Especially for novices, a three-dimensional understanding of technical drawings can be challenging. To train these skills with traditional methods is also challenging. In the classroom it is easy to read technical documentation but difficult to understand the meaning, while on the vessel it is easy to understand technical documentation but difficult to teach it.
ShipSEVR can transform any location on the ship, even a cabin, into a virtual space with a precise simulation of the real engine room conditions, space layout and engines. The technology provides accessibility to engine and engineer room schematics, technical diagrams and documentation at the trainee eyes, as a portable digital technical library. The easiness to access, read, analyze the details (zooming), search and store technical documentation is a significant contribution to shipping engine maintenance as most of the physical technical documentation is not easily accessible when needed and not in good conditions due to their usage. Unlimited training scenarios can be delivered in ShipSEVR as various challenges can be combined on type of work to delivered, physical challenges in the engine room and emergency or critical situations.
ShipSEVR was developed for safety training and education in engine rooms but its operations aims to extend the safety scope with the integration of behavioral analytics that predict not only the ability of the engineer to perform safety operations effectively but also on recognizing the emotional and physical state of the engineer to deliver a technical safety challenge.
Transforming this functionality and contribution into financial terms the benefits for both the shipping companies, the shipyards and the engine manufacturers are highly considerable in both financial and reputational costs. The effectives of ShipSEVR reduces the training costs, identifies capable crew to trust the engine room, reduces the possibility to have any type of accident, increases the safety standards and practices, and ranks rewardingly the well-trained crew though its pontification system. Furthermore, ShipSEVR increases the shipping companies reputation for their efficient and safe operations but also the engine manufactures’ reputation for their adaptation and alignment with advances technologies as supportive tools to their customers.
The results of this research have been are presented in the academic paper : Evangelos Markopoulos, Mika Luimula, Pasi Porramo, Tayfun Pisirici, and Aleksi Kirjonen. (2020) ‘Virtual Reality (VR) Safety Education for Ship Engine Training on Maintenance and Safety (ShipSEVR)’. Book: Advances in Creativity, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Communication of Design. Editors: Evangelos Markopoulos, Ravindra S. Goonetilleke, Amic G. Ho and Yan Luximon. Proceedings of the AHFE 2020 Virtual Conferences on Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Human Factors in Communication of Design, July 16-20, 2020, USA. Chapter No: 7, Springer. DOI