Digital Technologies for Workplace Safety: The Story of an Italian Spin-off Specializing in Advanced Simulators, Utilizing Robotic Technologies, AI, and Virtual Reality

Robotic Simulators and the Adoption of Digital Technologies for Workplace Safety can help in Accident Prevention and the Reduction of “White Deaths”. Robotic simulators and digital technology integration in workplace safety play a crucial role in preventing accidents and reducing fatalities, often termed “white deaths” – a phrase denoting lethal workplace incidents. Such incidents claim at least a thousand lives annually. In the first ten months of 2023, 868 fatal workplace accident reports were registered with INAIL, averaging nearly three deaths per day. Additionally, 489,526 workplace injuries were reported during the same timeframe.

Accidents can occur in various ways, but technology offers a means to mitigate them, starting with worker training. A subsidiary of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa specializes in designing and developing advanced simulators using robotic technologies and virtual reality.

Gabriele Facenza, co-founder of BTR Simulators, states that their simulators are “among the most advanced in Europe”.

The development of simulation systems is proliferating across multiple sectors, including aviation, automotive, healthcare, military, and gaming. This growth is reflected in the the market’s projected expansion, set to double from $16.6 billion in 2022 to $28.7 billion by 2030, driven by escalating demand for training, skill development, and risk mitigation. The co-founder of BTR Simulators notes that simulators ensure heightened safety standards in every workplace, while also offering cost effectiveness and a significant reduction in collateral damage.

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TAKEAWAYS

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Robotic Simulators to Enhance Training and Workplace Safety

The Italian spin-off, BTR Simulators – short for “Better Than Real” – epitomizes the concept of virtual environments surpassing reality by offering highly authentic and immersive experiences. BTR utilizes various 2D and 3D visualization technologies, including systems with single, multiple, or fully immersive screens. The deployment of both static and dynamic simulators ensures safe training for company employees and enables demonstrations in the workplace or other specific scenarios.

BTR’s commitment to developing solutions that use advanced digital technology for workplace safety and other applications stems from extensive research and innovation. Emerging from the PercRo Laboratory, established in 1991 by Professor Massimo Bergamasco at the Institute of Mechanical Intelligence of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, BTR unites over 70 professionals, including doctoral students, researchers, associates, and university professors specializing in mechatronics and computer science.

Over the years, BTR Simulators has established significant collaborations with various institutional, industrial, and scientific partners, including the Tuscany Region, the University of Milan-Bicocca, the CIF Foundation, and Cisa Logistic Group, specializing in integrated handling and logistics services. The simulators enable training in operating machinery like forklifts and overhead cranes, facilitating interaction with other users in the same simulation scenario, and allowing practice under diverse conditions and weather settings.

As Facenza elucidates, “The use of simulators in training is crucial because it answers a common question workers have during training for using dangerous, heavy, or complex machinery: what happens if I do this? During training through simulation, the answer to this question is provided in a completely safe environment, where accidents caused by incorrect maneuvers or decisions, unforeseen problems, emergency situations, or limited decision-making time do not impact the worker’s health“.

The Benefits of Utilising Robotic Simulators: Augmented Safety and Financial Efficiency

The simulator is a complex apparatus, intricate in its hardware and software components.

“Those developed by BTR Simulators stand out for their deep immersion levels to maximize user engagement, offering work scenarios that are remarkably true to life. We’ve developed simulators that incorporate the actual shell and instruments of the vehicle being emulated, operating within authentic virtual replicas of occupational environments. The trainee interacts with genuine objects and navigates real spatial contexts of their current or future workplace.”

The benefits for the organization are manifold: apart from providing effective and secure training, it also aids in reducing operational interruptions and the need for dedicated training staff.

Facenza clarifies what surpassing reality involves:

“Our approach is designed to ‘startle’ users, essentially confronting them with real, potentially perilous situations in a completely safe environment. No matter the extent of theoretical training, it never places a worker – often a novice – in scenarios where they must address a potential accident. Through our simulators, we recreate hazardous scenarios triggered by errors. Our aim is to equip them to manage these scenarios securely and logically, thereby enhancing their awareness and preparedness.”

The significance of digital technology in enhancing workplace safety is also perceived in its capacity to minimize collateral damage from onsite incidents:

“At certain steel mills, there were around 6 to 7 instances of load losses annually, with damages surpassing 100,000 euros per event. Over five years of using simulators, these losses were reduced by half. Beyond the immediate loss of load, one must consider the time, duration, and personnel involved in rectifying the problem. Furthermore, a lost load signifies undelivered goods within predetermined timeframes, resulting in additional financial losses.”

Among BTR Simulators’ most innovative creations is an elevated work platform for construction purposes: it is fully-equipped, automated, adaptable, and versatile, conceived for Inail in collaboration with Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna.

“The operator is immersed in a virtual reality environment, physically manipulating the equipment, thereby navigating a tangible setting, including sound effects to render the experience fully immersive.”

The Application of Artificial Intelligence

The development of digital technology for workplace safety also includes considering risks to individuals not directly involved in the work environment. In this context, BTR Simulators also employs artificial intelligence techniques.

“In addressing a challenge posed by a company regarding refuse collection trucks, we concentrated on the issue of blind spots – a major limitation and source of danger for pedestrians and cyclists invisible to the driver under certain conditions. To this end, a device was developed that, alongside multiple cameras, uses an AI system – trained via machine learning models – capable of self-learning to identify people and objects in a range of static and dynamic contexts.”

AI is also employed in software development models and for simulation purposes.

The Future of Simulation: From the Adoption of Wearable Devices to Avatars

The spin-off is working to bring simulators into professional technical institutes for student training. This is already occurring in Genoa through an agreement with an institute associated with the local port authority. A simulator already adopted concerns container handling. The Ports of Genoa (which include Vado Ligure, Savona, and Prà) have managed 26.6 million tons of container cargo.

“In all ports, in addition to the logistical study of how the container flow is managed, operators are required to maintain a constant speed of manoeuvre to keep the number of containers handled per hour high. Continuous training of operators allows the port to be competitive and therefore attractive to cargo ships,” Facenza emphasizes.

In the port sector, various technologies are employed, and some companies have already requested BTR Simulators for solutions to replicate operations to promote training activities.

Simulators are also finding applications in the medical-hospital field. In this regard, the spin-off has developed, in collaboration with S. Anna and the University of Bicocca, an automotive driving simulator for appropriate psychological evaluations.

For the future of simulators and digital technology in workplace safety, efforts are being made to further optimize existing solutions, such as headsets and wireless systems, and to develop wearable devices to take simulation to an even more advanced, realistic, and immersive level. In IT, the goal is to increase memory capacity to make simulation environments broader and more complete. In this regard, work is also being done to perfect the development of avatars to transfer the user into the virtual environment in certain work areas where, in addition to the person on the machine, the presence of a ground attendant is also required.

“For this purpose, we have employed specific mats that allow the person to move while staying in place, enabling their avatar to operate in the virtual environment, assisting other operators and vehicles in training,” concludes the co-founder of BTR Simulators.