Laura Ardila, Israel Perez-Llopis, Carlos Palau, and Manuel Esteve on "LVC Training Environment for Strategic and Tactical Emergency Operations" at ISCRAM 2013 in Baden-Baden. 10th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management 12-15 May 2013, Baden-Baden, Germany

1. LVC TRAINING ENVIRONMENT FOR STRATEGIC
AND TACTICAL EMERGENCY OPERATIONS
Laura Ardila, Israel Perez-Llopis,
Carlos Palau, Manuel Esteve
Communications Department
Universitat Politècnica de València

2. • Introduction
• Motivation and challenges
• System description
• Conclusions and future work
Contents

3. • Emergency management → training of operatives
• Use of ICT (C2IS , VR) in emergency systems
• New approach for developing training scenarios for crisis
management using virtual worlds
– Trainees learn and practice how to perform physical or procedural tasks
– Work toward collaborative animated agents
– Interoperability – MPEG-V standard
• Key features:
– Realization of joint exercises reducing costs in transportation of
personnel and equipment utilization
– Flexibility and real-time response
Introduction

4. • Traditional training simulated-based systems are
expensive and offer little flexibility
• Real training in the field of emergency management is
very expensive and complicated regarding the
harmonization of procedures between agencies
• A network-based system that integrates reality and
simulation will be relatively cheap and facilitate the
interoperability and harmonization of procedures
Introduction – Base hypotheses

5. • LVCTE → connect virtual worlds and C2IS
– LVCTE: Live, Virtual and Constructive Training Environment
– C2IS: Command and Control Information Systems
• Training in crisis management
• Standardized data formats
• Middleware in which different applications can interoperate.
• Seamless interactions among virtual and real participants
• Units deployed on the field and generated in the VW
• MPEG-V Gateway to interconnect the virtual and real world
• Train with the same tools used in a real crisis mitigation
LVCTE for Strategic and Tactical
Emergency Operations

6. • Introduction
• Motivation and challenges
• System description
• Conclusions and future work
Contents

7. • Use virtual reality to reproduce real environments and to
create immersive training exercises for human beings in
the context of crisis management
– Firemen, paramedics...
• Enhance and extend the training capabilities of
traditional virtual systems
• Reflect the reality with high fidelity
– Help managers and first responders develop actuation strategies
– Homogenize procedures based on realistic environments
Motivation and challenges (I)

8. • Enable collaboration between entities and to develop
actuation strategies
• Provide interaction and overlapping between virtual and
real worlds using MPEG-V
Interoperable training environment
• Represent accurately entities and their features and
support a variety of mechanisms, software and
communication tools
Motivation and challenges (II)

9. • Introduction
• Motivation and challenges
• System description
• Conclusions and future work
Contents

10. • MPEG-V gateway
• Live, Virtual and Constructive Training
Environment
• Human-Machine Interface
System description

11. • ISO/IEC 23005 (MPEG-V – Information
Technology – Media context and control)
• Architecture and representations to enable the
interoperability between virtual worlds
• XML schema
System description – MPEG-V
Customized data model

12. System description – Gateway

13. System description – LVCTE
• Tactical Manager Server (TMS)
• Tactical Trainer Client (TTC)
• Virtual Video Server (VVS)

14. • Gather video flows from real world sensors as well as
from the virtual clients output
• Stream, display, post operation analysis
• See the “hot-spot” → enhance training and improve
situational awareness
• Only one video flow from producer to VVW (scalability
and bandwidth consumption reduction)
System description – VVS

15. System description – HMI

16. • Introduction
• Motivation and challenges
• System description
• Conclusions and future work
Contents

17. • Successful preliminary implementations using OLIVE
• MPEG-V Gateway:
– Acts as a middleware connecting C2IS for emergency
management with virtual worlds
– Performs data streaming between real and virtual worlds
• LVCTE:
– Innovative, interoperable, flexible and scalable
– Contributes to improve the deployment of applications related to
emergency management.
Conclusions

18. • Integrate stationary sensors and UAV
• Develop virtual environments representing different
types of real environments
• Test new virtual worlds engines (e.g. OpenSim)
• Evaluate the inclusion of video streaming from real
cameras in the virtual world using MPEG-V data
definitions.
• Handling masses of people and “surprise element”
Future work

19. Thank you!
Ing. Laura Ardila
lauarsi1@upvnet.upv.es
Dr. Manuel Esteve
mesteve@dcom.upv.es