It’s a sunny day, and you’re standing on the corner of a nondescript urban street. Behind you are green rubbish bins, to your right is the Grated Roll pub. Neither of the two wooden benches outside have customers, though the pub does have a satellite dish and several hanging baskets of white flowers. All is quiet.
You are standing in reality in a corner of the showfloor at the International Security Expo 2019, at London Olympia, last week, because you are wearing virtual reality (VR) goggles and testing yourself as a fully-equipped armed response officer, holding a gun. Really holding it, that is, though it only fires in virtual reality.
In front of you, are two young men in t-shirts, one with a grinning face on the front. Who, if anyone, will be grinning a minute later? Were you the woman who repeatedly shouted ‘oh my god!’ and achieved a score of 8pc – that is, one of the 12 bullets ‘fired’ on target – or the man who more calmly asked the suspect to put the handgun down and talk about it, until the suspect pointed the gun – and then the man fired, achieving a final rating of 100pc hitting the target. One may well be more suited for armed response than the other.
That’s the point of the AVERT (Adaptive Virtual Reality Training); to immerse trainees in a scenario, without real bullets, or indeed the cost of hiring or owning a real street. Certainly the scenario felt real enough for the man pictured to put his hand out, as if to motion the suspect to keep his distance. Onlookers could watch the action unfold on a screen. Trainers, then, can follow the trainee in action and go through learning points afterwards; for in such scenarios, too little aggression may be as hazardous to the response officer and the public, as too much.
For a one-minute video trailing the AVERT product, visit the AVERT website.
Expo visitors could also have a taste of VR fire investigations – locating the source of a fire, and whether there’s evidence of bomb-making; and as a police scene of crime officer, gathering forensics, and protecting evidence by preserving the scene. In all three cases, VR offers a replicated, realistic scenario, to allow training to happen more frequently.
The two-day event also featured a ‘sea container demonstrator’ whereby UK Border Force showed how organised crime can use a tank that usually holds hazardous chemicals, to fill a void space to move illicit goods such as illegal drugs across borders.
The International Security Expo runs in 2020 again at Olympia on Wednesday and Thursday, December 2 and 3. Visit https://www.internationalsecurityexpo.com/.
