Multimodal haptics perception of underwater flow for scuba diving safety training

Abstract: Water accidents require intuitive decisions and training for such decisions because of the short time between involvement and death. The goal is to use engineering techniques to train and prevent accidents that require split-second decisions or are caused by human actions or scenarios that are difficult to anticipate.In recent years, the number of fatalities in traffic accidents and disasters has decreased significantly due to the development of technology and new technologies. However, water-related accidents, especially those caused by currents, involve human factors, and the ratio of fatalities to the number of accidents is still high. It is difficult to cover and solve such human-caused accidents with engineering technology alone. Therefore, it is necessary to solve the fundamental problem. The most important solution is to train people. By training people, the fundamental awareness of human factors can be trained, which will reduce accidents. The most effective way to learn these factors is through hands-on education and training. Among these, VR can be performed regardless of the location. It is expected to be much more effective than those obtained from videos or books.Many studies on VR training and Evangelos Markopoulo et al. have conducted a study on maintenance and safety education of ship engine systems using VR. In another study, Victor Saint-Martin et al. studied fire VR training for hospital personnel who have difficulty participating in regular on-the-job training. While there are studies on VR training that focus mainly on visual training, few studies on VR training focus on water accidents and aim to reduce accidents by tactilely displaying the strength of underwater currents. In addition, many underwater VR studies have been conducted for entertainment purposes, and few studies evaluate the perception of danger. In this study, we propose a VR system and a multimodal interface to post the flow of water hazards caused by the flow. Here, we validated the experience of flow using multiple senses, including VR and tactile sensation, to confirm the validity of the risk assessment. We found that the degree of risk perceived by a person can be combined in an additive manner with the risk postings given to each sensory organ, resulting in a higher risk rating. We also found that force postings produced higher danger ratings than tactile postings. These results indicate that using multiple senses to assess the danger of water currents increases the danger rating, and combining it with force instead of tactile sensation further increases the danger rating. In the future, we plan to discuss the effectiveness of this training in developing intuitive judgment. Furthermore, we would like to utilize this training for water accidents and other intuitive accidents to develop the ability to grasp the situation and make a judgment instantly.

Keywords: Virtual reality, Haptics, Training, Scuba Diving, Multimordal

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002639

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