Invensys launches ‘Virtual Reality’ training technology
Posted: 12 February 2008
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Invensys Process Systems (IPS) has joined a consortium to pioneer “virtual environment” (VE) technology for Simulation Safety and Operator Training, the technology company announced on Sunday during the product’s launch in Abu Dhabi.
The breakthrough technology will allow users to shift from control room “2D screen” training to a more dynamic virtual environment (VE). It is the first concept to use VE to help improve training, plant safety and production.
With a new tool such as VE, operators will walk through, interact with and exchange opinions in trustworthy virtual reproductions of their working environments. They will experience emergency, maintenance and accidental scenarios that provide the possibility to see the consequences of erroneous actions.
In conjunction with Virthualis and two other undisclosed companies, IPS’ dynamic simulation tool DYNSIM can simulate actual plant conditions in real-time eliminating real-life hazards that are not possible for training purposes.
“Field operators are completely immersed and perceive the VE world as if it was their daily place of work,” said Maurizio Rovaglio, Invensys Process Systems. “The operators in both the control room and the field could be trained as a team.”
IPS engineers have infused VE with a host of human factors, making it realistic and simple to use.
Simply by putting on the goggles, a field operator is able to see stereoscopically the spatial depth of his or her surroundings, walk-through the virtual plant and “feel it”.
The data suit tracks movements, the 3D spatial sound contributes to naturally perceiving the surroundings, while data gloves and different “magic wands” enable the operator to move around and naturally “touch reality”. With these, a field operator trainee can steer valves, turn switches, and view real-time data.
Experts demonstrating VE during the showcase said that once immersed in the VE, any normal or abnormal situations can be simulated and experienced by operators.
“Any correct or wrong actions, either in the field or in the control room, are simulated rigorously in terms of process behaviour with a clear action/reaction perception,” said Rovaglio.
One attribute that made the product unique is that operators can experiment the extent of possible consequences with various simulated scenarios.
“In practice, this means that all those abnormal situations that an operator feared and never dared to test in reality can be tested and that different plant behaviours and operator interactions can be understood.”
“Even expected and predictable upsets can be tested in depth, or even pushed forwards until an accidental sequence leads to a disaster: a virtual disaster is far better than a real one,” said Rovaglio.
“The strength of VE is that all aspects of plant safety can now be tested and experimented with, not just for the sake of training, but to help risk assessors better identify hazardous scenarios and, above all, to ensure that decision-makers make the right decisions at the right time.”
The consortium believes that as VE technology grows and develops, more and more process expertise will be embedded within it, improving the entire lifecycle of production plants and storage sites.
“This is important, because research has shown that more than 90% of major accidents in high-risk sectors such as chemical and petrochemical production, can be attributed to human error and poor training,” Rovaglio said.
As part of its work on VE, IPS is the leading simulation technology provider to Virthualis, an EC funded research project on industrial safety.
Running from May 2005 to May 2009, the Euro 15 million project is focused on developing new technologies that integrate virtual reality and human factors methods in order to improve safety in both production plants and storage sites. |
