Virtual Reality: the Way Ahead in Industrial Safety

This paper focuses on the application of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies and Virtual Environments (VEs) on the industrial field regarding safety. The issues of the industrial field are initially presented, focusing on the safety tasks currently performed in the sector. The Virtual Reality technology’s innovative character is then presented, focusing on how this technology can by itself aid the safety processes or in combination with other novel technologies. The latter approach provides significant aids to methodologies that are currently used towards industrial safety and the reduction of accidents. Under this scope, this paper will refer to training, safety management, risk assessment and accident investigation as the four main safety actions currently performed in industrial fields. The paper closes by presenting in general the applicability and innovative character of VR applied to the aforementioned four safety actions as well as presenting a concrete use case example.