Abstract
The increasing complexity of complex buildings, such as high-rise buildings and underground subway stations, presents new challenges to firefighters. In a fire in complex buildings, the importance of the collaboration between firefighters is clear. The increased demand on firefighter training for such environment is now evident. Due to cost, time, and safety issues, it is impossible to experience a real fire in such environments for training. In addition, the use of real fire for training does not enable repeatable training and the evaluation of the training is difficult. We developed a team-based firefighter training simulator for complex buildings using the virtual reality technology. It provides the training and evaluation of firefighting and mission-based team training. To model real fire phenomena in virtual space, a numerical analysis method based on fire dynamics is used. To achieve an immersive virtual environment, an augmented reality technique for the compensation of real world image and a haptic technique for heat experience are adopted. The developed training simulator can help the firefighter to respond to large and complex firefighting scenarios, while maintaining the safety of the trainees.
