One Headset, Multiple Training Environments: The Wider Value of Portable VR Simulation
- Andy Parkin
- 16 hours ago
- 4 min read
One of the scenarios we’ve built in VASCO starts with our vessel heading towards an anchorage behind a tanker. Another vessel is preparing to leave. As things develop, anchored ships restrict the visual references between Bridge Teams and several threats begin competing for attention at the same time.
The COLREGs are obviously part of the exercise, but they are only part of what gets discussed afterwards. Who noticed what? Was it communicated? Did everyone on the bridge have the same understanding of the situation? At what point could the developing risk have been picked up
The scenario is designed to let the team experience the error chain in a safe environment and then look at how it developed, with a focus on BRM, skill fade, complacency creep and recognising developing collision risk
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That session happens on a virtual bridge. Put the headset on for a different session and the environment could be an Engine Control Room or a Marine Evacuation System.
This is the power of portable VR that demands greater attention. Viewed at the macro level, the value extends beyond portability. It is the ability to give seafarers access to a range of shared training environments, where teams can practise procedures, maintain standards, develop skills and identify areas of operational risk before they are exposed to them in live operations.
More than one training environment
Portability is useful in itself. Training can take place onboard, ashore or wherever the crew happens to be, without every session depending on access to a fixed simulator facility.
The bigger value appears when the headset becomes a route into more than one training environment.
VASCO is Kilo’s flagship example. It gives Bridge Teams access to a shared virtual bridge where participants can train together in roles including Navigator, Co-Navigator, Helm and Look-Out. The scenarios can be built around COLREGs, Bridge Resource Management and wider operational behaviours, with instructors able to observe how individuals and the team perform as the situation develops.
When we provide training through the VASCO Supported program, our instructors look beyond the application of BRM and COLREGs. Situational awareness, distraction management, fatigue and human error can also form part of the competency focus, with each scenario debriefed against the objectives set at the start.
The Virtual Engine Control Room extends Kilo’s VR capability into engineering and Engine Resource Management, while the Marine Evacuation System environment is focused on maintaining critical system skills. Both sit within Kilo’s wider strategy for untethered VR environments alongside VASCO.
For the person wearing the headset, those are very different training sessions. For the organisation, the practical benefit is the same: the training environment can be brought to the people who need it.
Team practice is a big part of the value
Maritime operations depend heavily on people working together. Procedures involve communication, shared situational awareness, decisions being challenged where necessary and individuals understanding how their role affects everybody else around them.
Those behaviours need to be practised as well as understood.
VASCO gives Bridge Teams somewhere to apply that knowledge together. Kilo is already using it for competence maintenance, evaluation, team cohesion and mission rehearsal, alongside recruitment and promotion assessment.
When we deliver VASCO Supported, the debrief matters as much as the scenario itself. The Kilo Way guides our instructors to review passage execution, communication, situational awareness, support between roles and what the team would do differently next time. Feedback is objective and measurable, with areas for development carried into future sessions.
This takes the conversation beyond whether someone knew the correct procedure and starts to show how the team performs when several things are happening at once.
The same broad idea applies wherever the environment changes. Engineering teams have their own operational procedures and team behaviours to develop. Safety-critical systems bring different demands again. The usefulness of VR comes from giving people somewhere to work through those demands together before they face them during live operations.
Fitting simulation around operational life
Access has always shaped how often people can use simulation.
Fixed simulators remain an important part of maritime training, particularly where a dedicated facility is the right environment for the training requirement. Portable VR gives organisations another way to extend simulator access between those fixed-facility sessions.
With VASCO, participants can join through cloud-connected headsets using Wi-Fi, including from different locations. VIAB provides a self-contained local network option where an external connection is unsuitable.
For a fleet spread across different vessels, or a training organisation working across several locations, that makes repeat access much more practical. Something identified in one session can be picked up again later, without every intervention becoming another trip to a simulator centre.
We have seen the same thinking applied in defence. VIBRaNT, developed from the commercial VASCO platform for the U.S. Navy, gives sailors a portable environment for practising Rules of the Road. We looked at that use of portable simulation in more detail in What the U.S. Navy’s Use of Portable VR Tells Us About the Future of Bridge Team Training.
We have also explored how portable VR can work alongside traditional simulation in Navigating the Future of Bridge Simulation with VR Maritime Training.
A wider training capability
The headset itself may stay exactly the same from one session to the next. What sits behind it can be completely different.
For Kilo, VASCO is currently the strongest example of this in practice. It is being used for Bridge Team training, competence maintenance, evaluation and mission rehearsal. VECR takes the same portable VR principle into engineering, while the Marine Evacuation System work applies it around critical system skills.
For an operator, the question is quite practical: what do our people need to practise, and can we give them somewhere to practise it before they have to do it for real?
