Ontology-Based Scenario Generation for Competency-Driven Operator Training

Simulation-based training helps control room operators maintain decision-making and intervention abilities in highly automated process plants. Operator training simulators provide a virtual representation of plant processes and control systems to execute training scenarios, including abnormal operating conditions. Effective training requires diverse scenarios aligned with operator experience and defined learning objectives. In practice, creating scenarios for a specific plant is labor-intensive and requires specialized expertise, especially after plant or control system changes. This motivates automating scenario generation based on plant operating procedures, possible fault conditions (e.g., pump failure during start-up), the operator's training history, and didactic concepts such as learning objectives and competencies. We present a model-based assistance system that integrates control logic, fault conditions, the operator's training history, and formalized didactic concepts in a knowledge graph based on an ontology. The approach includes competency-oriented prioritization based on a simplified skill-decay heuristic to identify training needs and guide scenario generation. ... mehrA feasibility example demonstrates the generation of admissible training scenarios from the integrated knowledge graph using prioritization and ontology-defined constraints.