Development of a Virtual Reality Safety-Training System for Construction Workers

Safety training is an important and time-consuming task for many construction companies. Virtual Reality (VR) simulation can be used in safety training to help users understand and learn safety rules, standards, and regulations. VR can also be used to evaluate the degree to which construction workers acquired skills after taking safety classes. This project focuses on creating a Virtual Reality Safety-Training System and assessing the perceptual and behavior impacts of the VR environments on a trainee. Perceptual and ecological psychology are studied in creating VR worlds in order to make the system effective. The authors’ analysis determined that a streamlined, scenario-developing pipeline is needed to support flexible, computer-generated variations of the VR world. This reconfigurable and reusable system creates 3-dimensional virtual images and produces memorable experiences for trainees. Modules of various virtual objects and virtual environmental factors such as temperature, air composition, and visibility are also studied and simulated in the proposed system. The authors also plan to assess the areas of safety training that can benefit most from VR use.