Abstract
The mining industry is one of America’s most important suppliers of raw materials such as metals for the manufacturing, construction and high-tech industry. It is very profitable, but requires the mine to be fully active. Mining is also a comparably dangerous line of work and lives can be lost on the work site due to an emergency. As of right now, mines will generally conduct quarterly training to go over evacuation drills and how to handle emergency situations. However, the mine needs to halt production during drills, which is a major disadvantage of this training method. This in turn becomes a loss of profit for the mine. With the Mining Evacuation Training Simulator (METS), the mining industry will have a virtual training scenario for their workers. A more immersive experience is critical to the quality of training as the teaching content actualizes the real world experience. METS is a cost efficient training and safe alternative to the current model of evacuation training. With METS the mine will still be able to remain in production while a few employees at a time perform evacuation and emergency training.
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Acknowledgements
This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers IIA-1301726 and by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety under contract number 75D30119C06044. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety.
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Andersen, K., Gaab, S.J., Sattarvand, J., Harris, F.C. (2020). METS VR: Mining Evacuation Training Simulator in Virtual Reality for Underground Mines. In: Latifi, S. (eds) 17th International Conference on Information Technology–New Generations (ITNG 2020). Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1134. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43020-7_43
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