It really raises the bar on the precision of the training we can deliver. “Through the headset and the AR technology, we have the ability to track a person’s exact location within a room and inject source information into the room. “When I put the AR glasses on, it was obvious that ORNL’s technology and Teletrix’s tools were a great fit,” O’Connell said. VIZRAD trains a user to properly scan someone with a detector and provides objective feedback on technique. One of Teletrix’s products is VIZRAD, a virtual reality software system that simulates contamination on individuals and workspaces. “We're always looking to innovate training, so we make a lot of new products.” “Our company is solely dedicated to improving radiation training - our tagline is ‘Prepare Through Simulation’ - and making that training more realistic,” said Jason O’Connell, sales and business development manager for Teletrix. ORNL has been a longtime customer of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based small business, which also manufactures its own products. Teletrix’s simulators for radiological and gas detection training are widely used by utilities, emergency response organizations and government agencies. There was a synergy of hardware and software maturity coupled with an idea that’s been around a long time - the need to see ionizing radiation.” “Our team was at the right place at the right time to develop this technology. “When it comes to training with ionizing radiation, augmented reality is a superior and safer solution,” Smith said. The technology began as an exploratory, one-year seed project funded under ORNL’s Lab Directed Research and Development program. Significant support came from the Nuclear and Radiological Protection Division. In addition to Smith, the development team includes ORNL’s Noel Nelson and Douglas Peplow, all of the Nuclear Energy and Fuel Cycle Division and former ORNL researchers M. “We combined physics-based data with a gaming interface that provides a visual platform to make something invisible look and feel real - we took science and cinematography and brought them together,” said ORNL’s Michael Smith. As a trainee moves through the space, navigating around the contours, the device calculates real-time, yet simulated, exposure based on the user’s behavior. A 3D interpolation of these values is then used to create an image of gradient contours that are overlaid on a real-world view through an augmented reality, or AR, headset. Using simulated radiation data implemented in a gaming platform, the technology divides a physical space into cubes, each representing a volumetric value of ionizing radiation by dose. This technology will allow radiological workers to better understand the environments they work in, enabling a safer and more informed workforce.”Īt ORNL, the licensed methods were originally used to create the virtual interaction with physics-enhanced reality, or VIPER, application. “In our 80th year as an institution, we continue to provide leadership in this area. “In the 1940s, ORNL made pioneering contributions across numerous scientific fields, including radiation protection,” said Susan Hubbard, ORNL deputy for science and technology. Occupational exposure is a common occurrence for many radiological workers, so any method of decreasing exposure helps to limit overall negative effects and increase worker safety. Ionizing radiation - which is linked to cancer and other health problems - has enough energy to knock electrons off atoms or molecules, creating ions. A method using augmented reality to create accurate visual representations of ionizing radiation, developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been licensed by Teletrix, a firm that creates advanced simulation tools to train the nation’s radiation control workforce.
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