traditional displays and monitors in one room, while field operator trainees are in another room known as the “VR cave,” explains Maurizio Rovaglio, Ph.D., IOM head of innovation and emerging technologies. The VR cave room contains large screens on at least three of the walls to create the immersive environment. Field operator trainees in various parts of the room are interacting with different parts of the plant and can talk with each other and with the control room trainees via two-way radio. An instructor in a third room can follow what the control room operators are doing, and can also track the activities of field operators moving through the virtual plant via an overhead camera-like view.

As with conventional OTS training, one major value of VR-based immersive training simulator (ITS) technology comes through the ability to prepare operators prior to new plant start-ups, says Rovaglio. Field operators and maintenance personnel can be hired ahead of time, and don’t have to wait until a plant is actually built to “walk through” the plant to learn and practice their jobs. Plant start-ups typically require coordination between control room operators and field plant personnel, while communication between the control room and outdoor workers can also be crucial in emergency scenarios, which can also be simulated.

Twice the price

Based on early work with customers, IOM estimates that VR-based training can cut 20 percent to 25 percent off plant start-up times, says Rovaglio, while producing a 3 percent savings for a typical refinery maintenance budget. The price of an EyeSim system will fall “in the same order of magnitude” as that of an OTS system, he notes, though if both systems are developed in parallel for a plant, the resulting synergies might somewhat reduce the overall price. If an OTS system for a plant costs $1 million, for example, the tab for a combined OTS/EyeSim capability might come in at $1.8 million, Rovaglio suggests.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, some IOM competitors question the value of the virtual-reality approach. “Our read is that our customers are really looking for training systems that are easy to maintain and implement and that give good value for the training environment,” says John Caldwell, Emerson’s DeltaV product marketing manager for advanced control and simulation products. “We don’t see the virtualization of a plant as a necessary requirement, and the maintenance costs seem to be very high in that area.”

But ARC’s Fiske, for one, predicts that other vendors will soon be rolling out VR-based systems of their own. “In the future, I think it will be an option that everybody offers,” he says. VR technology will have particular appeal to younger workers, Fiske notes, “and if you want to attract the new workforce, you’re going to have to be commensurate with the technology that they’re used to.” When considered against the backdrop of some of the latest advances in interactive gaming technology, in fact, the EyeSim-type technology for industrial use is just “the tip of the iceberg,” Fiske adds.

Rovaglio confirms that IOM has bigger plans for the technology. While the company is promoting EyeSim initially for operator training, it sees expanding uses for VR technology down the road. “Looking to the future, we have the vision that this tool can become the new generation of interface with the plant,” says Rovaglio. “Why should the control room of the future be flat?”

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