Human Factors Assessment in VR-based Firefighting Training in Maritime: A Pilot Study

Virtual Reality (VR) has been used for training aircraft pilots, maritime seafarers, operators, etc as it provides an immersive environment with realistic lifelike quality. We developed and implemented a VR-based Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) firefighting simulation system with head-mounted displays (HMD) and novel human factors evaluation that could train and assess both technical and non-technical skills in the firefighting scenarios. The proposed human factors evaluation is based on a competence model and the non-technical skills such as situation awareness, vigilance, and decision making of seafarers could be assessed. An experiment was carried out with 6 trainees and 2 trainers using the implemented LNG firefighting simulation system. The results show that that the maritime trainees felt the VR scene was realistic to them, evoked similar emotions (such as fear, stress) during the demanding events as in the real world and made them attentive during the experience.