Application of Innovative Methods and Tools in Experiential Training of Workers in Confined Spaces

An examination of accidents involving workers in confined spaces has shown that for each accident that occurs there are often multiple injuries or victims. Furthermore, if the injured has been in contact with toxic products or has remained too long without oxygen, the resulting damage usually remains permanent. Education and training can reduce the negative impact of risk factors present in these kinds of environments through experience and knowledge of the operating modes, to manage not only the ordinary activity in these spaces, but also in the management of high-risk emergency situations for the individual. It is now established that an experiential training, based on learning by doing and that considers the psychophysical aptitudes required of workers, is essential for the proper management of the security of their own and their colleagues. Therefore, INAIL (Istituto Nazionale per l'Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro, i.e. National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work) researchers, in a logic of prevention through innovation, designed and built a physical simulator to replicate in an effective and protected way all types of risk and consequent danger to workers operating in these environments. The simulator is built to alter the cognitive conditions of the subjects who use it making them experience situations of risk and consequent danger extremely realistic and especially typical of confined environments (poor visibility, cramped spaces, communication difficulties, poor ventilation and emergency rescue). Additionally, to make training more realistic and immersive, INAIL researchers, in collaboration with professors of the Engineering faculty of the University of Naples, are working on the reconstruction of confined spaces in virtual and augmented reality, to train the operator to deal with potentially dangerous situations in an environment which, although virtually reconstructed, is as similar as possible to the one in which he will actually operate. A concrete example of the use of these techniques is the subject of this work.

Keywords: Confined spaces, Experiential training, Simulator, Virtual scenarios, Virtual reality, Augmented reality.