A VR-based the emergency rescue training system of railway accident

Once a railway accident occurs, the recovery process usually requires precise and safe operation of rescue equipment such as railway cranes. However, it is generally impractical to train crane operators in real accident sites considering the costs and human safety. This article aims to address the problem by proposing a rational VR-based crane training system, in which a visualization framework based on PhysX engine is designed to reconstruct a realistic railway accident scene for the purpose of effective virtual training. Based on that, crane operators are able to experience a realistic accident scene safely. In addition, the collision detection is used to present unexpected spatial constraints in railway accident sites. A user experiment with 10 participants demonstrated a high level of safety and smooth interactive performance of the proposed system, which is shown to be valuable for training of people who engaged in learning the proper railway accident rescue procedure.