How the Billion dollar VR gaming industry provided inspiration to train the operators in critical missions
Most of us have played video games in our childhood. There were no VR glasses when I was a child. The games were simple, presented in the 2D environment on a TV screen, and always had a catchy storyline. You could not forget your mission and it always felt so realistic playing them. My parents would often worry if these video games would spoil future generations and make them incapable. Little did they know that these would be the birthing ground of the most advanced training platforms and would save millions of dollars and human lives.
Now the most advanced and critical pieces of training are shifted to simulated environments with Virtual Reality and/or Augmented Reality interfaces.
The best part about video games was the freedom and safety. You could bang your car in a person without being jailed, jump off a clip and not die, fly a helicopter with minimal training, etc.
Does this ring any bells?
These are the tasks that require training and experience in our real world. You need to spend a lot of time before you actually start flying planes and helicopters. You can’t bang your car into anyone and you can’t jump off a clip if you want to be healthy. The real world is different and every action generates a result that can be very harmful in certain events.
For critical functions such as surgical procedures in healthcare, flying airplanes, controlling tower cranes, operating heavy mining devices, working with big forestry machines, etc. you cannot take the risk of accidents. The machines as well as the environments are very risky and can cause extreme damage to you and the surroundings.
That’s what was solved by the VR gaming industry. You can simulate all these events in a virtual environment and train the people to optimize their operations. That too with a fraction of cost and risk. The hardware, software, and risks associated with the operations of a simulated virtual reality environment are almost negligible when compared to real life situations. You won’t damage a billion-dollar airplane or a million-dollar heavy machinery. Moreover, you can experiment and simulate what would happen if a certain event takes place.
Virtual Reality in Training
To realize the VR training, you need hardware, software, and a trainer. The simulators cost somewhere around 10k-100k USD depending on the complexity and advancement of the hardware and software. The training usually costs between 1k to 10k for a single operator for one machine. It also depends on the complexity, expected salaries, etc.
These simulation platforms are very capable and offer tons of functions ranging from training to fly, operating critical machines, predicting the simulation of certain risk events, controlling remote machinery, etc. With each passing day, a new use case is invented by the public. Someone is using the platforms to train on medical procedures and someone is using them to train for advanced warfare.
The domain is expected to grow with a CAGR of about 40% with the market size expected to reach USD 13000 Million by 2026.
This growth is inviting a lot of players into the domain. Currently, there are hundreds of companies that are working in the domain worldwide and they manufacture the software/ hardware as per the customer needs. These are the best minds in the Industry. The solutions offered by these companies are not standard but customized based on client needs.
What influences VR training?
In the end, these are still pieces of training and the person needs to report for working in the real world. Despite all the training sometimes the trainees lack the skills and that’s why there is a high need for certifications. Some certifications exist in the current environment but more standardization is needed with global acceptance and global set parameters.
The VR industry is highly influenced by the hardware and software experience. Since the use of VR training has also gained momentum in the domain of classroom education, the demand for VR hardware has increased. There is also a good demand from the e-commerce platforms that want to use VR to drive their sales. In a nutshell, the demand has increased without availability and that has pushed the cost higher. However, it is expected that the cost would decrease in coming times and the high-end cost would be reserved only for critical training units.
There is also a need for trainers who would take the training in the new environments. A lot of the existing trainers are old-school people who don’t want to switch to the new platforms and thus there is a high need for trainers that love using VR platforms.
But, the domain is growing and gaining acceptance in new use cases every day. The future seems bright for VR training as of now.
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