Diseño y desarrollo de un sistema de tecnologías inmersivas aplicadas al entrenamiento en emergencias para la academia de Bomberos

Abstract

Training firefighters in real fire scenarios involves high logistical costs, significant physical risks, and a negative environmental impact. This thesis proposes the development and implementation of an immersive training system named VRBomberos, which integrates Virtual Reality (VR) with a cyber-physical hardware architecture. The system uses an ESP32 microcontroller to manage wireless communication via UDP protocol, achieving an average latency of 12.3 ms, which is imperceptible to the user. The solution consists of a real fire extinguisher instrumented as a physical control interface for trigger detection and a thermal belt that simulates fire radiation, conditioning the user to maintain safe distances. Three training scenarios (Kitchen, Vehicular, and Industrial) were developed in the Unity graphics engine, designed to evaluate accuracy, reaction times, and sweeping technique. Tests conducted with a pilot group demonstrated a 33% improvement in shooting accuracy between the first and second attempts. The economic analysis projects an operational saving of over 85% compared to the traditional method, validating the system as an effective, safe, and low-cost complementary tool for first responder training. Keywords: Virtual Reality, Immersive Training, Thermal Feedback, ESP32, Firefighters, Simulation.