Heavy Equipment Operator training via Virtual Modeling Technologies

Off-site and on-the-job training programs constitute current methods to train construction equipment operators. Being time-intensive, expensive, and potentially hazardous, these methods give novices only limited opportunity to experience real working conditions. Computer modeling technologies—Augmented Reality, Augmented Virtuality, Virtual Reality, teleoperation, and simulator—are envisaged to meet this challenge. To facilitate comparisons between different training schemes, a taxonomy is presented to identify distinctions. Skill transfer from the training program to real task performance is noted to be a critical ergonomics issue, and thus a cognitive-motor spectrum was developed for classifying categories of transferred skills prevalent in current equipment operator training schemas.