Semantic Representation of Domain Knowledge for Professional VR Training

Domain-specific knowledge representation is an essential element of efficient management of professional training. Formal and powerful knowledge representation for training systems can be built upon the semantic web standards, which enable reasoning and complex queries against the content. Virtual reality training is currently used in multiple domains, in particular, if the activities are potentially dangerous for the trainees or require advanced skills or expensive equipment. However, the available methods and tools for creating VR training systems do not use knowledge representation. Therefore, creation, modification and management of training scenarios is problematic for domain experts without expertise in programming and computer graphics. In this paper, we propose an approach to creating semantic virtual training scenarios, in which users’ activities, mistakes as well as equipment and its possible errors are represented using domain knowledge understandable to domain experts. We have verified the approach by developing a user-friendly editor of VR training scenarios for electrical operators of high-voltage installations.