HaptX and immersive learning solutions supplier RoundTable Learning recently collaborated to offer VR training to railroad employees. In order to increase engineer safety, the partners are collaborating with BNSF to offer railway engineers an immersive, step-by-step training platform.
As part of its 2024 safety and technical training project, BNSF plans to regularly utilize virtual reality. The VR program will make use of the virtual learning environments and resources offered by Roundtable Learning, and HaptX will supply the training program with its touch-based feedback system.
As more and more forward-thinking organizations aim to upskill their workforce in the industry, BNSF plans to follow the lead set by railway companies by utilizing immersive training solutions.
BNSF is using the Mechanical GEVO Tier IV course from Roundtable Learning to give managers a step-by-step simulation that walks them through the troubleshooting and repair process of a T4 engineer.
BNSF hopes to give employees a multi-sensory learning experience that boosts conventional learning methods and increases operational awareness and effectiveness with the addition of HaptX Gloves G1 integration.
BNSF wants to use XR technologies to show actual accidents and injuries while also enhancing safety. After launching a test program, BNSF intends to implement the technology widely over the remaining months of 2024.
Additional information from HaptX
Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health, the National Eye Institute, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services granted HaptX a Phase 1 Small Business Technology Transfer program funding. Through the use of haptic technologies, the funding aims to accelerate research into accessible XR applications for people with visual impairments.
HaptX collaborates with Old Dominion University (ODU) and the Georgia Institute of Technology on this research endeavor. Both colleges received investments from the fundraising round as well. HaptX is sharing their microfluidic actuation haptics technology through the research, enabling precise representation of virtual braille content at the user’s fingertips.
The broader research team will employ this haptic device and its software algorithms to provide touch-based feedback for mapping virtual braille information. The research team believes that this work has implications beyond visually impaired people and can be applied in professional settings.
More details regarding RoundTable Learning
In an effort to highlight Lenovo’s ThinkReality VRX headset as a top workplace tool, Roundtable Learning, a VR training solution for business end users, has announced its involvement in Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.’s Snapdragon Spaces Pathfinder Program. Roundtable Learning will add its portfolio of Fortune 100 companies to the Pathfinder Program as part of this partnership. The company is ready to use Lenovo’s next immersive device to create products that will influence how people work and study in the future.
Roundtable Learning will be able to utilize Lenovo’s ThinkReality VRX device as well as the open environment of Snapdragon Spaces, which showcases real-world XR use cases and facilitates VR/AR/MR software creation and distribution.
