During Expo Maritime Philippines 2023, the Industry Association MARINET, for the first time, introduced VR simulators for seafarer training. The VR simulator is already available for training centers.

Simulators create a complete picture of both the navigational environment and the equipment on the ship’s bridge merging virtual interaction with controls and devices. Mathematical models of simulators generate not only the parameters of the ship and the environment, as in traditional simulators, but also model the state and the behavior of the ship’s equipment and its interfaces.

“VR simulators would significantly improve and reduce the cost of training in comparison with traditional simulators”, says Alexander Pinskiy, Chair of MARINET. “Firstly, they allow to quickly deploy training equipment in almost any room at minimal cost, which increases the number of trainees and reduces training cost. Secondly, they make it possible to simulate a specific vessel a seafarer would have to work, i.e. significantly improve the quality of training for specific missions”.

The developers also plan to make VR simulators available for the self-training of individual seafarers using cloud services, which will also significantly expand the training opportunities for seafarers, incl. without interrupting their work.