VR TRAINING FOR FLIGHT DECK OFFICERS

The safe way is the best way

The client is a startup from Norway that wants to revolutionize the training industry with Intelligent Immersive VR Training Systems. They gather training consultants from various industries and design comprehensive and innovative training programs whose purpose is to be implemented in VR.

Client

NDA

Sector

Aviation safety

Emergency services

Services

VR training

Technology

HTC Vive

Unreal Engine

Visual results video

Business Value

We don’t practice until we can get it right.

We practice until we can’t get it wrong.

VR Training for Flight Deck Officers allows near-reality level training in various scenarios on a helicopter deck. This includes emergency situations that can’t be properly simulated or are very hard to simulate in real life.

Thanks to VR it’s possible to train all the different scenarios within the same facility. No need to travel and engage expensive equipment and professionals. The low cost and quick setup of the VR training mean the training can be completed much faster.

The course consists of theory, memorizing of movements and behavior. And practical training in VR. Typical environments include helicopter decks on offshore oil rigs, supply ships, cruise ships, ferries, and onshore helidecks. The simulation covers technical knowledge, deck operations and procedures, communication, signaling and fighting fires.

Thanks to the nature of VR it’s possible to arrange various situations in minutes and to perform the training in remote locations outside the established facilities. Having multiple scenarios the target participant list includes Rescue Personnel, (including Helicopter Emergency Medical Service), Firefighters, Police, and other civil and military rescue workers.

Warship with a helicopted onboard during a storm

Challenge

When faced with a challenge, look for a way, not a way out

The challenge that the clients face is to implement an immersive and responsive environment to train helicopter pilots in various weather conditions and real-life situations.

The motivation for this training is strongly guided by the difficulty and danger associated with arranging an actual training situation. Once the trainee acquires the basic skill set it is all about training in practice, which is exceptionally expensive and hard to arrange without VR.

The main challenge was creating the training in a way that resembles the harsh environments of some landing situations. Such as landing on a carrier ship during a storm at sea. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

Process and project scope

Scope

The scope of the project consisted of a series of training for Flight Deck Officers. There were 3 main parts of the system:

Real-time landing simulation and gesture interpretation.
Post analysis reports of the trainee performance.
Set of environments with custom weather and their specific elements such as open sea ship movement.

Process

At the very beginning of the process, we had the client visit us in our offices, and we had a 2-day workshop to finalize the design of the training specification. The next step was to deliver working versions of each consequent module in bi-weekly iterations. We had the client engaged in the sprint review where we gathered the necessary feedback.

Service

The place that required the most changes was handling the hand movement and interpreting gestures by the artificial pilot called AI. It was crucial that the AI can interpret the train moves as realistically as possible so that the participant can master their skills in VR.

Collaboration

The project was commissioned in modules. Each module consisted of a specific environment and situation. 4Experience prepared a budget and a schedule of delivery for each module.

Technology stack

To create the presented application, we used Unreal Engine 4. It was best suited to rendering realistic surroundings.

We have also used 3ds max and Substance Suite.

Unity - the main tool used by 4Experience