RORSIM: A warship collision avoidance 3D simulation designed to complement existing Junior Warfare Officer training

Royal Navy Junior Warfare Officers (JWO) undergo a comprehensive training package in order to prepare them to be officers of the watch. One aspect of this training relates to their knowledge of the ‘Rules of the Road’ or ‘COLREGS’; the rules for the manoeuvring and signalling that approaching vessels make in order to avoid collision. The training and assessment exercises undertaken predominantly use non-interactive static materials. These do not exercise the required skill in reconciling information from maritime charts, radar displays and ‘out-of-the-window’ monitoring. Consequently, performance during assessment on the VR-based bridge simulator falls short. This paper describes The Rules of the Road SIMulator (RORSIM)—a proof of concept interactive 3D (i3D) simulator developed to bridge the training gap between classroom teaching and VR bridge simulator assessment. RORSIM’s differentiation and its key functionality in terms of visualisaton, physics/interaction and game mechanics are influenced by the consideration of pedagogical learning models during requirements capture. This capture is formalised by a ‘Training Gap Use Case’—a graphical viewpoint using the Universal Modelling Language which can assist developers in requirements capture and development of i3D tools for existing training programmes. Key functionality, initial JWO feedback and a planned pilot study design are reported.