Since the year 2000, seven of the world’s navies have experienced a total of 19 major incidents involving submarines, some, sadly, resulting in fatalities. Given the remote areas of the oceans within which these vessels operate, early and effective safety training of recruits is of paramount importance. SubSafe is an HFI DTC study evaluating a spatial awareness simulator for naval personnel undertaking basic submarine qualification (SMQ) training. SubSafe’s virtual submarine can be explored by SMQ students in a ‘first-person’ game style – navigating decks and compartments simply by using a PC or laptop mouse and the arrow keys of a conventional keyboard. All decks forward of the control room have been modelled in 3D – a total of some 30 compartments and 500 different objects – including key items of safety-critical and life-saving equipment (e.g. fire extinguishers and hose units, high-pressure air valves, and emergency breathing system masks – see the photo above right). A statistical analysis of the SubSafe evaluation data has revealed that use of the simulation during classroom training significantly improves the final week ‘walkthrough’ examination scores of students (onboard an actual submarine) when compared to those of the control group.
Interest in the SubSafe project has stimulated the development of related safety demonstrations for the submariner community, including a simulation where the user has to rendezvous and dock a rescue submersible with a disabled submarine whilst viewing simulated underwater images through the submersible dome and external CCTV cameras. Another demonstrator focuses on the deployment of CO2-absorbing Lithium Hydroxide ‘curtains’ within the Forward Escape Compartment and the constraints these curtains may impose on available crew space.
Digital assets collated during the early SubSafe modelling programme, together with new media, have also been re-used by the HFI DTC to develop a unique 3D animation of the HMS Tireless Self-Contained Oxygen Generator (SCOG) explosion incident in March 2007. The animation was presented during the 2009 Coroner’s Court of Inquiry in Sunderland to illustrate the activities and rescue attempts undertaken by the boat’s crew following the explosion. The media produced during this project is now being developed into a safety awareness tool for distribution throughout the submarine service.
The project described here is from the Human Factors Integration Defence Technology Centre’s seven year R&D portfolio, which has involved very close collaboration with military end users. A comprehensive catalogue of R&D activities undertaken by the DTC can be reviewed by downloading the Centre’s 2008 Yearbook at www.hfidtc.com.
Print 
PDF