Michael Smith (right) holds a laptop showing what Scott Greenwood (left) sees through augmented reality goggles that are part of the VIPER project funded by ORNL’s Seed program.
Augmented reality technology transforms how workers see radiation
Nuclear engineers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have combined augmented reality and radiation transport simulations with the aim of revolutionizing radiological training. Using augmented reality goggles, the technology could benefit multiple sectors from space exploration to nuclear energy to emergency response.
Called VIPER (Virtual Interaction with Physics Enhanced Reality), the project was funded with $190,000 from ORNL’s Seed Money Fund for FY 2021. Team members include Michael B. Smith, M. Scott Greenwood, Noel Nelson, and Douglas Peplow.
“We are transforming the way a nuclear worker can see radiation,” Smith said. “We take something that is invisible and make it visible.”
As opposed to virtual reality, in which users see an entirely imaginary world through goggles that shut out the real world, augmented reality technology allows the participant to see his or her surrounding environment along with a computer-generated overlay.
“When you put on our goggles and activate the system for a radiation training exercise, you see the room in which you are standing, and then as you walk around you see a colorful overlay where the radiation field is located,” Greenwood said. In addition to allowing the participant to see radiation, VIPER also provides real-time feedback on estimated radiation exposures based on the user’s behavior.
The researchers were inspired with the idea after analyzing advances in augmented reality and data visualization enabled by recent developments in the video game industry.
“Think next-generation ‘Pokémon Go” reinvented for nuclear energy,” Nelson said.
The VIPER project hopes to provide radiological workers with a better understanding of radiation by allowing trainees to see, interact, learn, and ultimately develop an innate sense for radiation that has never before been possible.
"Here at ORNL we are encouraged to undertake endeavors that could create a new capability or to put an intriguing twist on an existing one," said Kathy McCarthy, Associate Laboratory Director of the Fusion and Fission Energy and Science Directorate. "This team's project spawned from video game technology is an example of this type of endeavor."
