Thu, 14 November, 2024
V-LAB is a smart engineering technology and energy consultancy focused on sustainable innovation, formed in 2020, that offers integrated engineering services. The company’s interdisciplinary, forward thinking team of experts delivers solutions across the project lifecycle, ranging from concept and design, build and operations, through to decommissioning, repowering and life extension. Operating worldwide, V-LAB works closely with clients to help them realise business opportunities.
Technical expertise spans technologies such as digital twins simulation, building information modelling (BIM), aerial survey, artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) as well as virtual reality (VR) and extended reality (XR) applications in the Metaverse. V-LAB team members have also been widely published in technical journals and at conferences.
V-LAB was one of the first signatories to the UN-recognised ‘SME Climate Commitment’, which is part of the SME Climate Hub, an initiative aimed at supporting small and medium-sized businesses to build resilience towards the achievement of net zero emissions by 2025 In doing so, V-Lab has pledged to halve its carbon emissions by 2030 and report regularly on progress. This reflects the company’s interest in areas such as energy efficiency, carbon neutrality and clean technology, and the work it does with community energy groups and organisations to implement and test innovative technologies. V-LAB founding Director Dr Vladimir Yukovic is also a Senior Research Lecturer in Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Energy Reduction in the Built Environment, at Teesside University in the UK.
Since its inception V-LAB has focused on collaborative innovation, as demonstrated by its participation in the current SafeXtend project alongside consortium partners Brunel Innovation Centre (BIC: a strategic partnership between Brunel University London and TWI Ltd), Correll, Tricore Technical Services and The Power Hub. V-LAB is the project lead for SafeXtend, a new, AI-powered VR training platform for the construction industry which has been developed by the consortium and is now undergoing testing.
The platform provides simulations of real-world scenarios that prepare construction personnel for the complexities of site work, and help to upskill existing workforces, thereby reducing the risks associated with on-the-job training, and enhancing safety provision and overall performance. Longer term, employers in the construction industry will benefit from the utilisation of training methods that are more cost-effective than traditional ones, and the mitigation of potential delays and overruns on projects, as a result of better trained workforces who are more engaged by the simulated environments in relation to health and safety manuals and check lists.
In the spirit of collaboration and innovation, SafeXtend builds on technology already conceived and realised by V-LAB, and its fellow consortium partners, for the Innovate UK funded SafeSite project, which focused on safety training provision for the offshore wind infrastructure segment, and consequently takes it out to the wider construction market.
The SafeXtend project has received funding from Innovate UK (Collaborative AI Solutions to Improve Productivity in Key Sectors) under No. 10102820