KLM has been actively involved in the development of practical Virtual Reality applications for years. Chris Koomen is the pioneer of this initiative, which has expanded from a one-man project to a full-fledged department within the airline. Rocking Robots spoke with him about the application of VR in aviation.
Before a Boeing 787 Dreamliner takes off, the pilots must inspect the aircraft in a pre-flight inspection. They can now train for this using virtual reality. In VR, they see a photorealistic model of the aircraft and which parts need attention, and they can also indicate when the inspection is actually performed. This makes the inspection faster and reduces the chance of errors.
Chris Koomen, Virtual Reality Specialist at KLM, is responsible for this application, among others. He started with virtual reality as a hobby in 1996, but at that time the technology was not yet very useful for business. When he later worked as a mechanic at KLM, he did not initially make the connection. However, this changed in 2015 when he started making a 3D environment using 360-degree photos with the technology available at the time. He then showed this to his manager, leading to the first cautious applications.
Ontruiming
De eerste was een 360 graden foto van hoe de hangaar er op dat moment uit zag van onder een Airbus A330. De tweede was het ontruimen van de hangar in VR. Dat werd een interactieve training met 1.158 keuzes die de gebruiker kon maken, inclusief CGI. “Die training werd binnen KLM zo goed ontvangen dat ik steeds meer tijd op kantoor doorbracht met het ontwikkelen van VR, naast werk in de hangar overigens.”
Hij ontwikkelde een monteurscursus, waarbij de cursist virtueel in het vliegtuig zat en kon trainen welke schakelaars omgezet moesten worden. Vanaf dat moment werd VR zo belangrijk dat Koomen de ruimte kreeg om eraan te werken in de Digital Studio van KLM, de speciale innovatie-afdeling waar onder meer de RPA-activiteiten zijn ontwikkeld. “Binnen een jaar tijd werkte we daar met een team van elf mensen aan de ontwikkeling van VR bij KLM.”
Scaling
This has since resulted in a wide range of applications, from pushback simulator and jetway bridge training to multi-student fire safety training and cockpit training. With that, VR entered a serious phase, it outgrew the experiments of the Digital Studio and Koomen became responsible, among other things, for the actual implementation of VR in the organization at KLM. Now, three years later, VR is fully operational under the KLM XR Center of Excellence. Some applications are even officially certified by the IL&T (Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate).
“We have already had the breakthrough of VR. We have now tackled the biggest challenges. It all starts with a good use case, where you start small. It is important that you have knowledge of a lot of technical matters, you must first have that in order. Starting small is key. We are now in the scaling-up phase within the organization, which presents new challenges. You can easily maintain one or two glasses yourself, but maintaining fifty or a hundred glasses already takes considerably more time, so we have to leave that to the maintenance department. You have to arrange that well.”
Value
The VR training courses are extremely realistic for the employees, and it is an advantage for the organization that they can be given anywhere. Employees do not all have to travel to a specific location. “That sustainability element is very important to us,” says Koomen. “We see VR as an addition to the range, not as a replacement for simulator training, for example. But they have proven their business value.”
A striking example of this is the cleaning of the previously mentioned Boeing 787 Dreamliner: He says: “We made a VR application for cleaning staff who had never worked in the 787 as a test to show how they could use the aircraft after a flight. had to clean. We showed this to the cleaning staff, and they turned out to do it flawlessly, and fifteen minutes faster than normal.”
Savings
“At first we thought it might be a coincidence, but when we did that for a longer period of time at multiple destinations, the same result always came out. That proved the power of VR to everyone, and we could easily show management that a relatively small investment in equipment yields enormous savings, because error-free working and time savings mean enormous savings in this industry.”
A point of attention in aviation is, of course, security. “Online access to a virtual version of a device also has security aspects, and in consultation with security we have, for example, removed certain sensitive matters. It is always important to find a balance between what is technically possible and what is allowed according to the rules. And that’s good, because safety is the most important thing in aviation. Everyone at KLM is willing to discuss a good solution, because developments in technology continue unabated.”
