On April 26, 2023, a delegation of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation consisting of Deputy Vice-Rector for Digitalization Roman Morozov, Director of the Center for VR Technologies “Cyberhub” Grigory Ivanov, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Theory Marina Allenykh visited the Rosatom Technical Academy to study and disseminate positive practices in the application of virtual reality technologies in education.
Specialists of the International Nuclear Power Plant Personnel Training Center conducted a technical tour of the visual prototyping complex for 3D demonstration of the buildings of the Cave NPP and a VR training simulator, a multifunctional simulator of the NPP power unit.
Dmitry Bezuglov conducted an excursion, showing the work of the testing laboratory in the Department of Special Competencies, Technical Academy of Rosatom.
During the meeting, the possibilities of using virtual and augmented reality to improve the education quality and improve interaction with students, the prospects of using 3D modeling technologies to create prototypes and practical tasks, as well as the possibility of using immersive technologies during training seminars and webinars were discussed.
“We would like to thank the International Nuclear Power Plant Personnel Training Center of the Rosatom Technical Academy for organizing the visit. I am sure many of our colleagues would be happy to get to know the training process at the Technical Academy and its technological support. I was impressed by the complexity of visual aids and simulators in a few hours which give an idea of how everything works outside and inside the nuclear power plant. The visit to the testing laboratory increased the effect, making us think about cooperation in this direction as well,” said Grigory Ivanov.
“We note the high level of the training base, the detail of modeling the system physical state, the elaboration of infrastructure and process models, which allows, on the one hand, to quickly get a general idea, and, on the other hand, to delve into the details, to work out skills and abilities. We see further prospects for combining the efforts of our organizations in the field of VR technologies in education,” Marina Allenykh added.
“The unique specificity of the subject area imposes, of course, a significant regulatory imprint on the learning and control process. But, on the other hand, it emphasizes the aspects that are inherent in these processes in any university. I think cooperation in modeling technologies and the creation of digital doubles would be mutually beneficial for our organizations. We are looking forward to a return visit and we see several areas of cooperation in research and application of VR technologies in the educational process,” Roman Morozov summed up.
The following cooperation areas were noted:
· effectiveness analysis and evaluation of immersive technologies’ use in training,
· development of VR training pilot projects based on scenarios simulating situations of passage to the controlled access zone of nuclear power plants and the organization of measures to prevent foreign objects from entering the cavities of the opened equipment, taking into account the categories of equipment risk zones,
· development of courses using immersive technologies.
“We see one of the promising areas to work out the VR scenario of passage to the controlled access zone, which will allow us to hone the skills of operational and repair personnel, increasing the speed of passage with unconditional compliance with safety requirements,” said Yevgeny Nikulin.
“The organization of measures to prevent foreign objects from entering the cavities of the opened equipment is one of the nuclear power plant priorities and the operating organization. The target values’ achievement of the “Coefficient of preventing getting into the opened equipment” is due, among other things, to the improvement of the personnel training process, and here VR technologies are an effective training tool,” Ildar Sufiyarov said.
“Simulator training is an important part of training nuclear power plant personnel. VR technologies in education is already a fait accompli, and the task of the Technical Academy is to keep up with modern technologies, and in the future - to be one step ahead!” – concluded Vadim Ledyaev.
“The cooperation of the International Nuclear Power Plant Personnel Training Center of the Rosatom Technical Academy and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation has been going on for years. It began with joint research in nuclear fuel cycle economics of the economic efficiency evaluation in nuclear industry digitalization. Today we see prospects for further development of our relations in the joint development of VR technologies and full integration of education and production,” Maria Volos summed up.
Immersiveness (immersive — “creating the effect of presence, immersion”) is usually defined as immersion in certain artificially formed conditions. It includes augmented reality AR, virtual reality VR, mixed reality MR and artificial intelligence AI.
