Improving safety and human performance in maintenance and outage planning through virtual reality-based training systems

In the nuclear industry, maintenance and decommissioning tasks are performed in radioactive areas. This work requires that personnel are well-trained to complete tasks quickly and efficiently to minimize their exposure. Virtual reality technology can be used to train unfamiliar workers (e.g., contractors, new employees) on the physical layout of an area and to help workers visualize the radiation distribution in the area. This paper describes an experiment conducted to investigate the use of VR-based training systems. The study evaluated three different conditions: guided VR-based training, non-guided (i.e., exploratory) VR-based training, and conventional map-based training. The results indicated that the VR-nonguided condition provided the best support for user performance. However, performance in the VR-guided condition was worse than the map condition. Thus, it is not simply VR technology that contributes to effective learning, but rather the design of the training system, which can effectively be supported by VR technology.