Immersive training of first responder squad leaders in untethered virtual reality

Abstract

We present the VROnSite platform that supports immersive training of first responder units’ on-site squad leaders. Our training platform is fully immersive, entirely untethered to ease use and provides two means of navigation—abstract and natural walking—to simulate stress and exhaustion, two important factors for decision making. With the platform’s capabilities, we close a gap in prior art for first responder training. Our research is closely interlocked with stakeholders from multiple fire brigades to gather early feedback in an iterative design process. In this paper, we present the system’s design rationale, provide insight into the process of training scenario development and present results of a user study with 41 squad leaders from the firefighting domain. Virtual disaster environments with two different navigation types were evaluated using quantitative and qualitative measures. Participants considered our platform highly suitable for training of decision making in complex first responder scenarios and results show the importance of the provided navigation technologies in this context.

Can a Virtual Reality Training Scenario Elicit Similar Stress Response as a Realistic Scenario-Based Training Scenario?

“…This quasi-experiment sought to understand if a VR environment could elicit a similar acute stress response as a realistic SBT exercise related to law enforcement active shooter response training. With more first responder training utilizing VR systems (Mossel et al, 2021; Peretti et al, 2021), it’s important to understand if such training is comparable to SBT in provoking stress. Both difference-in-differences and two-way ANOVA analyses indicate that VR technology can elicit a similar acute stress response as a short (∼50 seconds) SBT utilizing professional actors.…”

“…Researchers have recently begun to suggest the use of VR as a medium to provide training to first responders (Mossel et al, 2021; Peretti et al, 2021). Although it has primarily been used for recreational gaming and entertainment, VR systems offer two unique benefits when used for training.…”

Procedure for the implementation of VR/AR learning scenarios for method training - Presentation of the Assisted Reality Implementation Model (ARIM).

“…[16] Corresponding ongoing and already completed research initiatives have addressed these improvement options, but the concrete application is currently still scarce. [7,9,14,[28][29][30][31] Further research revealed that there are initial uses of these technologies in the area of quality methods, e.g. with the Virtual Quality Toolbox (VQT) [32].…”

“…[10 -12]The experience of time travel to historical events is exemplary [10,13], to name the free exploration of the universe and its planets and thus the overcoming of physical barriers. In addition, the limits of irreversible decisions in psychologically demanding dangerous situations, such as the training of fire brigades under realistic conditions, can be safely enabled [14,15]. With AR it is also possible to display additional content and information in the real environment, directly in the user's field of vision.…”

A gaze‐based interaction method for large‐scale and large‐space disaster scenes within mobile virtual reality

“…At present, much work has been conducted in this field. According to the hardware system used, these works can be divided into two main categories, namely, personal computer (PC)‐based 3D visualization of disaster scenes (Catulo, Falcão, Bento, & Ildefonso, 2018; Cheng, Chen, & Cao, 2019; Li, Li, Chen, Zheng, & Liu, 2018; Lu, Yang, Xu, & Xiong, 2020; Redweik, Teves‐Costa, Vilas‐Boas, & Santos, 2017; Winkler, Zischg, & Rauch, 2018; Wu et al., 2019; Zhi, Liao, Tian, Wang, & Chen, 2019) and PC virtual reality (VR)‐based 3D visualization of disaster scenes (Feng, González, Amor, et al., 2020; Feng, González, Trotter, et al., 2020; Fujimi & Fujimura, 2020; Jacquinod & Bonaccorsi, 2019; Lin, Cao, & Li, 2020; Mossel et al., 2021; Tibaldi et al., 2020; Wang, Hou, Miller, Brown, & Jiang, 2019). The 3D visualization of disaster scenes based on PC VR has a stronger sense of immersion and can give people a more immersive experience.…”