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The significance of the system is attested by: a) exhibition at��APPEA��Conference, Australia’s leading Oil and Gas industry exposition; b) winner of the world leading Gold��IDEA��award for interactive design, 2009 (USA), the judges noting “A thoughtful approach to immersive learning… The potential applications are a class apart"; and c) cited 15 times in major news reports including��BBC.

In 2008, iCASTS’ suite of VR simulations and platforms were commercialised for the Australian Coal Services Pty Ltd for $7.2M as a permanent training simulator housed in custom-designed facilities across five sites, using the��AVIE, AVIE_SC and iDOME visualisation platforms.

Project Details

Key characteristic differentiators for this iCinema technology include:

• A range of 360 degree immersive projection platforms
• Capability to be interactively used by groups rather than just one person at a time (a limitation of head-mounted display VR solutions)
• Unprecedented level of realism and immersion
• Trainees can recognise and train in their own mine environments
• Continual build-up of a database of actual mine layouts
• Image as opposed to text-based training delivers potential to be easily adapted for overseas operations such as in China or Latin America

The interaction device was developed with assistance by Tiller Design, a professional product development team. It consists of a central control console and a 3D inertia hand-held wand that allows the user to navigate and travel through virtual environments as well as control physical environmental attributes such as lighting, sound and playback of a simulation. Both console and wand are intuitive, immediately accessible but importantly do not distract from the virtual environment experience. The wand allows the user to interact directly with the environment by selecting items, moving objects, and simulating basic tasks that would be done in the real-world environment. The console gently removes itself from the environment by lowering the lighting and brightness of controls depending on the status of the training program. Together, the console-wand combination provides an ergonomically pleasant interactive experience.

These virtual experiences enable users to begin to visualise and recognise complex mining situations, to build up knowledge of procedures and skills and to undergo training in a safe and forgiving environment.

iCASTS��is currently utilised in four locations nationally and one location in China.

Dr Phil Stothard, Chairman of the International Mining VR Group and Senior Research Fellow at the��������Ʒ��School of Mining Engineering, is responsible for creating the interactive group-based virtual reality training scenarios for Coal Services that will run on the iCAST systems. “������Ʒ��and��CSPL��are leading the world in this field,” he said. “There is no question that these technologies have the potential to save lives and their full potential will be fully realised through further domestic and international collaboration.”

Use of these systems provides mines with key cost savings in addition to their ability to provide enhanced safety training:

• It allows training to take place at any time of day.
• It reduces down-time on taking equipment out of production for training purposes.
• This reduces training impact on production levels.
• Enables faster start-up with better prepared staff
• Being highly familiar with equipment and its operation through the training simulation means that operators are far less likely to damage multi-million dollar equipment once they start in the actual operating environment – a huge saving on maintenance and repair.
• Improved knowledge and skills reduce injuries and increase productivity.
• Improved risk assessment tools
• Improved competency increases staff morale
• Workforce has high level of competence before entering real environment
• Maintains a record of personal assessment and achievements
• Identifies deficiencies in personnel training without risk
• Trains away unsafe practices
• The progressive improvement of the technology and delivery of novel interactive content continues through interfaculty collaborative research.