SBIR-STTR Award

Industrial accidents have a devastating effect on public health in the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2002, there were nearly 5 million non-fatal private sector injuries, and over 5,000 fatalities. Forklifts injuries and fatalities account for a disproportionate percentage of these injuries and accidents. Of the more than 1 million forklifts in production in the United States, it is estimated that every year 1 in 10 will be involved in an accident, many of these (over 20,000 per year) result in serious injuries, and some will even result in fatalities (over 200 per year). Experts agree that safety training is key to reducing these numbers. For forklifts, such training is mandated, due to the high risk associated with their operation. Virtually every safety training product or training course on the market entails passive learning. Things like workbooks and video tapes are the most common materials used to teach safety training. This proposal describes a low cost Virtual Reality forklift safety trainer. It allows the student to operate a forklift, complete with steering wheel and control levers, in a virtual warehouse environment. The trainee can study and practice accepted safety standards, and subsequently be tested on his or her understanding of these standards. The proposed system is educationally sound as it employs a constructivist approach wherein the student participates in hands-on, active learning. This type of learning is universally accepted among education and training experts as the most effective. This system has the potential to revolutionize safety training by introducing an accessible (low cost), intuitive, and effective safety trainer that lets students operate a highly hazardous vehicle in a zero risk environment. There are hundreds of other environments that the technology could readily be applied to, transforming the way the U.S. approaches safety training from passive, static environments to active, constructive ones. This transformation will ultimately lead to fewer injuries and fatalities in the workplace.

Thesaurus Terms:
Computer Assisted Instruction, Computer Human Interaction, Computer Simulation, Educational Resource Design /Development, Injury Prevention, Occupational Hazard, Training, Vehicular Accident Computer Program /Software, Computer System Hardware, Curriculum, Human Mortality, Interactive Multimedia

The work proposed under this project is the development of a low cost, high fidelity virtual reality forklift safety trainer. There are over 1 million forklifts in operation in the United States, and an estimated 2 million operators (6 million including part time operators). Annually, in this country, there are over 100,000 injuries involving forklifts and every three days someone is killed in a forklift accident. Further, 1 out of every 6 workplace accidents involves a forklift. Forklifts are by far the most dangerous industrial vehicle currently in operation, and the tremendous health and safety impact of their operation is felt by everyone, including operators, floor workers, managers, customers in big box retail, and random passers-by. Experts agree that better safety training is the solution to this alarming rate of injury and fatality. This project aims to deliver a low cost, hands-on, active OSHA-compliant virtual reality safety trainer that allows trainees to operate a virtual forklift in hazardous conditions. The trainer, which employs an inexpensive video game steering wheel and joysticks to accurately simulate the controls of a forklift, is a revolutionary improvement over current training media, which includes video tapes and workbooks, both passive forms of instruction. The broad goal of this project is to reduce the injury and fatality rate in forklift use by reducing the number of accidents. OSHA already requires forklift safety training for all operators, and this goal can be accomplished by giving them a comprehensive, hands- on experience of operating a forklift in hazardous situations, in the same way the military employs flight simulation to train its pilots. The goal will be achieved by employing sophisticated virtual reality and vehicle dynamics algorithms that allow for the scaling of virtual reality technology from expensive supercomputers to commodity office PCs. Tactus has pioneered this effort by taking advantage of the enormous computing and graphics power available on today's average desktop computer, along with the inexpensive video game hardware currently on the market, driven by the video game industry. The result of this project will be a radically improved forklift safety training platform that will be the first ever mass marketed virtual reality based simulation. 7) Project Narrative (Relevance) Safe industrial machine operation affects everyone in the United States, and accidents and injuries are not limited to machine operators. Forklifts, are by far the most dangerous industrial vehicles in use today, due to their high number (over 1 million) and high accident rate (1 in 6 industrial accidents affects a forklift, and there are over 100,000 injuries and 100-200 fatalities each year in the United States due to forklift accidents). Forklifts injure workers, pedestrians, shoppers, delivery people, and even random passers-by (joggers, for example), and their safe operation directly and indirectly constitutes a major public health issue.

Public Health Relevance:
This Public Health Relevance is not available.

Thesaurus Terms:
Computer Simulation, Occupational Hazard, Occupational Health /Safety, Training, Transportation /Recreation Safety Human Subject