DESIGN AND OPERATION OF A VIRTUAL-REALITY OPERATOR-TRAINING SYSTEM

The risks to equipment and personnel associated with the manual operat ion of switching station equipment demand rigorous personnel instructi on. Additionally, switching errors reduce customer service quality. Wi th the virtual reality operator-training simulator ESOPE-VR, trainees can practice all necessary switching operations in complete safety, ch ile maintaining a high degree of realism. A speech-recognition system allows for complete control of the training session by the operator tr ainee, while sound immersion adds a dimension of realism to the virtua l world. An expert-system validates the trainee's operations at all st ages of the process and provides verbal context-sensitive advice whene ver errors are made. A steady-state power-now simulator recalculates n etwork variables whenever operator actions lead to changes in topology . The automated conversion of station single-line diagrams to realisti c three-dimensional models permits an operator to be trained economica lly for of a large number of stations.