Towards the Industrial Metaverse: A Game-Based VR Application for Fire Drill and Evacuation Training for Ships and Shipbuilding

TL;DR

This paper presents a VR-based gamified application for shipboard fire emergency training within the Industrial Metaverse, including development details and preliminary user evaluation results to improve safety training effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces a novel VR application for ship fire drills in the Industrial Metaverse, with comprehensive development guidelines and initial user performance insights.

Findings

User decision-making improved in fire scenarios

Risk assessment skills were quantified

Preliminary evaluation highlighted future challenges

Abstract

This paper details the creation of a novel Virtual Reality-based application for the Industrial Metaverse aimed at shipboard fire emergency training for fire drill and evacuation, aligned with the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention requirements. Specifically, the application includes gamified scenarios with different levels (e.g., varying fire intensities in engine rooms and galleys). The paper details comprehensively the VR development while providing a holistic overview and practical guidelines. Thus, it can guide practitioners, developers and future researchers to shape the next generation of Industrial Metaverse applications for the shipbuilding industry. Moreover, the paper includes the results of a preliminary user evaluation aimed at quantifying user decision-making and risk assessment skills. The presented results of the experiments provide insights into user performance and allow for pointing out at different future challenges.