The definition
A VR simulator is a system that behaves like a piece of equipment or a work situation when a person gives it inputs (ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765 vocabulary), with the scene shown to that person in a VR headset. In training, the person performs the task with their own hands, and the system answers with the equipment's physics and scores what they did.
The vocabulary definition is broad on purpose, and in training it helps to pin it down to what the person does inside. The task comes from the job procedure: in Gerdau Corsa's program, the sequence of every maneuver, which mistakes count and how each one is scored are set by the company, which trains its own crane operators. The physics is the part that answers back, and in Fyware's simulators it takes different forms: a suspended load that swings, a forklift that cannot stop in time for a pedestrian, a fire that grows if the wrong extinguisher is chosen or a cracked helmet that has to be rejected. The evaluation leaves a record of each attempt, whether a CSV file downloaded from the headset, as in the Fyware Safe forklift simulator, or a per-person report inside a platform, as in Gerdau Corsa's program.
A 360 video puts the person in the middle of a scene, but playback runs on its own and the viewer can only turn their head, so no decision can go wrong. A motion-seat arcade ride or a video game can use the same headset and even a motion platform, and usually neither rehearses a procedure nor scores the person. US aviation regulation offers a yardstick. 14 CFR 1.1 defines a full flight simulator as a replica of the cockpit of a specific aircraft type, with a visual system that shows the view outside the cockpit and cues at least equivalent to a three-degree-of-freedom motion system, qualified level by level under part 60; a flight training device, one step down, replicates the instruments, equipment, panels and controls, and its definition does not require motion.
In a headset simulator, degrees of freedom get counted twice. The headset tracks the head: with 6DoF it registers where the person looks and where they are in the room. A motion platform moves the seat or the body, and its degrees of freedom say along how many axes of rotation and translation it does so, up to six. Access Virtual's portable flight simulator, for which Fyware built the extended reality layer, combines both: Access Virtual describes it as full motion with six degrees of freedom, engineered to the standard of an FAA Level D device, and inside it the pilot wears an XTAL 3 headset, with a 180-degree field of view per its manufacturer, along with hand tracking integrated by Fyware and bHaptics gloves.
For a US buyer, OSHA's forklift standard shows where a simulator fits. Under 29 CFR 1910.178(l), training combines formal instruction, which can include interactive computer learning, with practical training and an evaluation of the operator's performance in the workplace, and trainees may operate a truck only where that does not endanger them or other employees. A pedestrian who runs across the aisle cannot be staged with an actual truck under that rule. Inside a headset it can, while the workplace evaluation and the employer's certification stay with the physical equipment.
Fidelity is then decided task by task. When the movement of the hand matters, the controls have to be physical, and in Gerdau Corsa's program each crane is operated with levers wired into the simulation. When the skill is a decision, such as choosing an extinguisher, a standalone headset is enough: the four Fyware Safe simulators run on a Meta Quest 3 without a PC or internet.
