GOLDEN, Colo. (KDVR) — The Colorado School of Mines is using augmented reality to train its campus police officers. The technology allows officers to go through training exercises using campus buildings.
“To be able to respond to a situation, for example, in Alderson Hall, it has a lot of benefit and realism there to know the actual layout of the building,” said Dustin Olson, chief of police at Colorado School of Mines.
The technology comes from Avrio Analytics, which specializes in augmented reality training for first responders.
“We’ve taken training and we’ve put it in your actual buildings, your actual space, and we augment the pieces in it so you can do training and not interrupt daily activities,” said Alicia Caputo, CEO of Avrio Analytics.
Once campus buildings are digitally mapped out, instructors can set up a number of scenarios including active shooter, radiation and hazmat training. Instructors create the scenarios on an iPad. The scenes can be changed in real-time, so no scenario is the same.
“The system we use, we put a lot of AI in it, so no one is in the same spot every single time. They run through a drill and it varies and it changes difficulty,” Caputo said.
Colorado School of Mines started training its officers with AI last year. Their goal is to have the entire campus mapped out by the end of 2023.
“It’s never the same. There’s always a way to create a new twist to maybe the same type of scenario but two scenarios never have to be the same, so you’re really just limited by imagination,” Olson said.
Avrio Analytics said the University of Colorado Boulder just signed up to use the technology as well.