An Inteligent Agent-Based Virtual Game for Oil Drilling Operators Training

Abstract

Oil exploration has become a steadily growing business. This is due to the ever increasing demand for oil derivates in the international market. The extraction of this mineral, however, is not an easy process. It poses many hazards which may threaten the environment and the lives of workers at an oil well. In order to reduce the chances of accidents and failures, a continued training to the workers is highly recommended. This paper presents a game which simulates a drilling rig. This game, the players are exposed to various circumstances in which they can exercise their knowledge about their work and learn what to do in troublesome events. Artificial Intelligence techniques will be applied to the game in order to accomplish that feature. The application will also include instant interactions among several players in a virtual 3D environment. The game is a web-based, which allows players to remotely execute it on different platforms.

The Use of Virtual Reality Alone Does Not Promote Training Performance (but Sense of Presence Does)

“…There was also no gender difference in the level of experienced sense of presence either, findings that are contrary to previous studies that have demonstrated females experience a higher level of presence and, consequently, perform better (Allen et al, 2016;Liang et al, 2019). Nevertheless, our results confirmed previous findings were gender was not found to be associated with task performance differences (Cárdenas-Delgado et al, 2017;Juan et al, 2018;Khashe et al, 2018;Roettl and Terlutter, 2018).…”

“…For instance, the use of VR for training has been adopted for activities regarding safety and hazards in chemical industrial plants (Bell and Fogler, 2000). Training in VR has also been employed in the energy and oil industry (Brasil et al, 2011). Implementing VR could also be beneficial for training health care professionals, including doctors and nurses.…”

“…However, these data have often only focused on negative symptoms from simulator sickness (SS) and were not derived from investigating other factors, such as performance and possible learning differences between males and females in VR (see Grassini and Laumann, 2020c, for a recent review). Few articles have reported gender differences in performance connected to the use of VR, and results have often shown no differences (Cárdenas-Delgado et al, 2017;Juan et al, 2018;Khashe et al, 2018;Roettl and Terlutter, 2018). However, a minority of studies have shown that females may perform better in tasks related to VR (Allen et al, 2016;Liang et al, 2019).…”

Lecture-based, virtual reality game-based and their combination: which is better for higher education?

“…Combining lectures and VR games for teaching/theoretical and practical in teaching Stansfield (2005) designed an educational curriculum with both practical and theoretical content for proper understanding in theories as well as hands-on experience which proved that lectures containing theoretical content are crucial to include in curriculums. New methodology of education and practices such as VR and augmented reality (AR) are being introduced in engineering education to interest, motivate and engage the young students participating in the curriculum (Dinis et al, 2017;Brasil et al, 2011). A desktop non-immersive simulation game of a drilling rig was introduced where players would be workers in hazardous situations and apply the theoretical knowledge they learnt about their work to handle such events (Brasil et al, 2011).…”

Evolution of XR Research in Brazil according to the first 22 SVR editions

“…Also in 2011, Brasil et al (2011) presented a game which simulates a drilling rig and exposes the players to various work events. Artificial Intelligence techniques help users to learn what to do in troublesome scenarios.…”