Organisation

Coal India Limited

Problem Category

Software

Problem Description

Background: The mining industry is known worldwide for its highly risky and hazardous working environment. Technological advancement in extraction techniques for proliferation of production levels has caused further concern for safety in this industry. Research so far in the area of safety has revealed that the majority of incidents in this hazardous industry take place because of human error, the control of which would enhance safety levels in working sites to a considerable extent. India is the world's second-largest coal producer as of 2021. Coal production in the country stood at 715.95 million tons (MT) in FY21. Between April 2021 and October 2021, coal production in India stood at 379.597 million tons (MT). Coal is the main pillar of India's energy sector. In 2021, it said, India consumed 93.2 crore tons of coal, 77% of which came from domestic production and 90% of which was used for power generation. The National Foundation of India study said that crores of Indians depend on the coal economy directly or indirectly. It highlighted that more than 1.3 crore Indians are employed in coal mining, transport, power, sponge iron, steel and bricks sectors. According to studies, skill-based errors are most critical and require immediate attention for mitigation. Training and upskilling the work force can help avoid errors which are based on mostly based on predictive fuzzy reasoning. Summary: VR technology has its unique advantages in several fields related to coal mining, such as miner safety training and emergency rescue drilling, besides drifting-producing process simulation, disaster scenario simulation, and mechanical operation training. Coal mining, regarded as a high-risk industry, has a strong demand for virtual reality (VR) to fulfill safety and emergency rescue training. A cloud-based VR system is to be designed for the training of coal miners. This system has to be a browser/client architecture which will include modules demonstrating the full procedure of an underground coal mine. The online cloud-rendered video streaming is to be adopted to provide enough computing and rendering power for a better browser-based user experience. Furthermore, game artificial intelligence (AI) can also be introduced into the system to increase the emotional exchange between the system and users. Objective: The objective is to provide an AR/VR solution that can simulate the real life situations and challenges of the coal mining industry and the workers can be trained and can be given the first-hand experience and possible solution to tackle such a scenario which will help avoid mishappenings and could save dozens of lives.