Coal Age

NOV 2014

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est, many operations simply lack the ability to invest in the current conditions — despite the obvious ROI," Karadjian said. "Secondly, we've found some of the mar- ket has had a less than positive initial expe- riences with underground coal mining simulators, being accustomed with older technology. Upon entering this market we knew the realism of our product would stand out and re-shape the perception." NIOSH Virtual Research Experience "How much experience do you have as a miner and mine rescue team member?" "How often does your team train?" "How many mine rescuers do you interact with on a regular basis outside of work and practice?" These questions seem simple and innocu- ous enough, but they are helping to build a vast, detailed database of knowledge for researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Over the course of nearly a year and c u l m i n a t i n g N o v e m b e r 4 w i t h a l a r g e group of mining engineering students from West Virginia University, NIOSH researchers led by Michael Brnich and Launa Mallett have spent hundreds of hours studying 10 mine rescue groups of varying skill levels from universities and mining operations nationwide inside the agency's 360˚ virtual reality laboratory o n t h e v a s t c a m p u s o f t h e P i t t s b u r g h Research Laboratory. A portion of each of the 10 one-day events included groups experiencing mine escape training exercises in the vir- tual environment laboratory, which fea- tures a full-height screen and technology from Mechodyne viewable in 3-D with the use of lightweight glasses. In the sec- ond segment of the day, each of the teams worked independently on a mine rescue exercise based around a longwall face explosion. Throughout each group's time at the lab- oratory, a series of questionnaires were completed by each individual on simple questions such as virtual reality experience to more complex queries including knowl- edge-based testing on mine rescue tech- niques. Team members were also asked to critique one another and the level of effica- cy of each member and the team as a unit. During the experience, Brnich and his team studied group dynamics — how the mem- bers interacted with one another and with the team's leader — and their physical and verbal responses to being in an emergency situation. Every glance at the mine map and each piece of dialogue was carefully cata- logued for further review. "The work on the project began back in 2008 when several of our researchers vis- ited Australia and toured VR training facilities in New South Wales and Queensland," Brnich noted. "Australia has been successfully using virtual envi- ronments for mine rescue and emergen- cy response training since the early 2000s m i n e r e s c u e c o n t i n u e d November 2014 www.coalage.com 41 A miner training inside an Immersive Technologies VR unit.

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