Confined Spaces, Defence, defense
Virtual Reality
MOD:VR Confined Space Training
Enhance diver and support team with diver focused confined space training through a realistic VR headset experience for the Ministry of Defence.
CLIENT
Ministry of Defence
OBJECTIVE
To Improve the understanding of key steps for divers and support teams operating in confined spaces, training in all required aspects of diver training.
APPROACH
A highly realistic VR confined space training experience for diving professionals and teams.
The Problem
Diving is a highly specialized activity that comes with significant risks like equipment failure, communication breakdown, or hazardous underwater environments. If proper procedures aren’t followed precisely, divers can face serious incidents. For military and commercial divers, the need for realistic, repeatable, and risk-free training solutions is critical. Without an effective way to rehearse in controlled conditions, divers may enter the water unprepared, leading to operational inefficiencies and compromised safety.
High Risk: Diving is a potentially hazardous activity that can lead to safety incidents if procedures are not correctly followed.
Costly and Resource Intensive: Traditional training methods are labor intensive, dangerous, costly and time consuming.
Limited Repetition and Scalability: Hands-on training is often constrained by time, location, and available resources which limits how often divers can actually practice.
For military divers, the need for a realistic, repeatable, and risk-free training solution is essential. Without an effective way to rehearse procedures in a safe and controlled environment, divers could enter the water unprepared leading to compromised safety.
What is Confined Space Training?
Confined space training prepares workers to safely enter, work in, and exit areas that are not designed for continuous occupancy and may present limited access or egress. These spaces often have poor ventilation, low visibility, or the potential for hazardous atmospheres, requiring strict safety protocols.
Training typically covers:
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Hazard recognition and risk assessment
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Emergency response procedures
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Safe use of personal protective equipment (PPE)
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Communication and monitoring systems
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Permits and entry procedures
Confined space training ensures that teams can operate safely in these environments, which often have unique, high-risk characteristics.
Who Needs Confined Space Training?
This type of training is vital for personnel in industries where enclosed or restricted environments are common. Examples include:
- Military operations (e.g., divers, engineers working in tanks, vessels, or flooded structures)
- Oil and gas (e.g., storage tanks, pipelines)
- Construction (e.g., crawlspaces, silos)
- Manufacturing (e.g., pressure vessels, mixers)
- Utilities and water treatment (e.g., sewer systems, vaults)
Each industry faces different risks, but all benefit from scalable, repeatable training that reduces exposure during preparation phases and improves real-world performance.
BEfore and after
Understanding Confined Spaces
According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a confined space is defined as any place, including chamber, tank, vat, silo, pit, trench, pipe, sewer, flue, well, or other similar space, which is substantially enclosed (though not always entirely) and where serious injury can occur from hazardous substances or conditions within the space or nearby.
Confined spaces may not be small in volume but are dangerous due to poor ventilation, restricted access, or potential for toxic or flammable atmospheres. A space does not need to be under a certain size to be considered confined, but generally, these environments are difficult to enter or exit and present physical or atmospheric hazards. The height, width, or depth is not fixed in law, but entry is typically restricted to openings less than 750 mm wide and environments less than 2 meters in height. Some confined spaces may be several meters deep, such as tanks or wells.
10 common examples of confined spaces include:
- Storage tanks
- Silos
- Utility vaults
- Ship holds
- Pumping stations
- Sewers and manholes
- Boilers
- Subsea pipelines
- Crawlspaces in buildings
- Trenches and pits
Legal and Safety Requirements
Under the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997, any worker required to enter or work around a confined space must be adequately trained. This includes understanding potential hazards, using breathing apparatus or other PPE correctly, and responding to emergencies.
Employers must assess all confined space risks and provide training that is task-specific, practical, and repeatable. For military and high-risk environments like diving, this is even more critical. Failure to train properly can result in serious injury, fatalities, and legal consequences.
This reinforces why VR-based confined space training is not just innovative, but aligned with legal requirements and operational safety standards.
The solution – Realistic confined space training for divers
To address these challenges, SHIIFT created a immersive virtual reality (VR) training solution deployed via headset for end users to train and mission rehearse in a safe environment, prior to getting into real water.
Features include:
- Multi-player VR solution covering familiarization and training for divers enabling team members to train collaboratively within the same scenario.
- Photo-realistic scenes of environments and equipment that enhances realism of the diving simulation, keeping users immersed during training.
- Divers can have repetitive practice for mission rehearsal, allowing them to prepare for specific operations in a controlled setting, reducing uncertainty unlocking mastery and confidence of all essential skills before facing real-world diving conditions.
What started out as a ‘nice to have’ concept developed by the SHIIFT Training team and supported by the MOD’s J-Hub incubator, has now become an essential requirement for aspects of defence diver training.
Benefits of VR for Confined Space Training
Virtual reality enhances confined space training by eliminating many traditional constraints. Advantages include:
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No exposure to danger: Training is carried out without placing personnel at physical risk, ideal for high-risk tasks like diving or working in hazardous atmospheres.
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Unlimited repetition: Scenarios can be repeated as many times as needed to build competence and confidence.
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Consistent training: Every trainee experiences the same hazards, decisions, and challenges, ensuring standardization.
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Real-time feedback: Mistakes in the simulation become learning opportunities, with immediate debrief and coaching potential.
By leveraging VR, organizations can implement confined space training programs that are safer, more efficient, and more scalable.
Want to learn more about Safety Training and how you can optimize your training?
Research has already shown that VR training massively increases the effectiveness of safety training, we at SHIIFT understand how effective VR can be and how best to utilize the incredible advantages of virtual reality. SHIIFT Training has a mountain of knowledge and experience developing immersive training such as this one.
Or schedule a demo with us to have a deeper dive (no pun intended) into how we can take your training courses to the next step with our revolutionary bespoke training application development, whether you need immersive desktop simulations, virtual reality training, engaging videos, or anything else!
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