Development of Virtual Reality Serious Game for Underground Rock-Related Hazards Safety Training

Traditional safety training media to transfer safety knowledge specific to the rock-related hazards in underground mines are mainly video or manuals, which are inefficient and bring a poor training experience. In this paper, we designed and developed a serious game based on virtual reality (VR) technology in order to efficiently transfer safety knowledge and enable enhanced interactive safety training. For different training purposes and users, we designed two modes, one for professional scaling training suitable for novice scalers, the other for rock-related hazards perception training suitable for other miners. Our game is built based on game engine-Unity3D and equipped with HTC VIVE to improve immersion. The game pipeline is to have trainees basically understand safety knowledge through guided interaction and then make a self-adaptive practice to fully master it. We evaluated the effectiveness of our game, and the results of the comparative experiment show that our game is more efficient than the instructional video in both training modes. The application of our game is proven to have the potential to change the safety situation of underground mines and evaluate the level of safety awareness and risk aversion of the miners in the future.