Hazmat Augmented Reality Solution

Project Details
The project, sponsored by an SBIR award from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, supports the Office of Public Health Practice at the Rutgers School of Public Health.
Project Goals
The goal was to create a realistic, inexpensive, and easy-to-use simulation of chemical spill handheld sensors for use in HAZMAT training.
Project Results
Cell Podium developed an app for Android cell phones and mobile devices that simulates the exposure readings from a chemical sensor, taking into account the real-time distance between the learner and the mock hazards, and the type of hazard configured by the HAZMAT course instructor.

Rutgers School of Public Health is already using this fully functional prototype.
Project Overview
The Rutgers School of Public Health (RSPH) Office of Public Health Practice (OPHP) conducts hands-on exercises that are a vital part of its HAZMAT training programs. A key objective of these exercises is to provide learners with realistic experiences involving (1) hazards, (2) personal protective equipment (PPE), and (3) air monitoring instruments, to assess learner performance in the context of these realistic experiences.

OPHP learners work with actual PPE and very realistic looking (and behaving) simulated hazards. Missing from the experience, however, are hazard sensors, including chemical and radiological, that in real time provide the learners with realistic readings representative of the current condition of the exercise, such as hazard types, hazard and learner positions, and wind speed and direction. Instead, instructors periodically shout exposure levels to learners during the exercise from the sidelines, undoing much of the effort to make the overall exercise realistic to the learner and increasing burden to the instructor, impeding multi-learner exercises.
Project Execution
The project developed an augmented reality training system that addresses the above need for realistic sensor simulation in HAZMAT training. The solution includes handheld devices that look similar to handheld chemical and radiological hazard sensors, and which behave as if they were actual hazard sensors and the training hazards were real.

A specific aim of the project was to design this system, so that it is low cost and complementary with the existing assets of HAZMAT training programs. To reduce the cost of acquiring and operating the system, the system hardware consists only of consumer cell phones to emulate the handheld hazard sensors, and inexpensive miniature Bluetooth beacons (under $35 each) which are placed on each mock hazard of the exercise to inform the system where each hazard is located with centimeter precision.

The augmented reality training system consists of a mobile phone application that emulates a handheld sensor, miniature low-energy range-finding Bluetooth beacons that emulate the hazards, and a web application that calculates exposure levels and through which the instructor configures the exercise.
Project Impact
The augmented reality training system represents a step forward in the quality and relevance of hazardous operations training. eLearning has improved training over traditional classroom teaching, and many believe that the next step in eLearning is immersion, i.e., field exercises that engage mind and body in the experience of being autonomous in (mock) dangerous situations. Immersive experiential/physical learning has been widely adopted; for example, OPHP runs at least five exercises every year in which a simulated hazardous waste site is prepared for students as part of their hands-on training in the 40-hour Hazardous Waste Training course.