Immersive’s CEO, Peter Salfinger, said, “The strong sales figures we have seen dur- ing 2010 continue to demonstrate the grow- ing acceptance of simulator training across the mining industry and its ability to signifi- cantly increase site safety and profitability.” The PRO3 simulator, according to Immersive, builds upon the success of its predecessor, the AES Series 2B, which the company claims has become the industry standard in mining simulator training over the past 11 years, with hundreds of units now located across 29 countries.

“Interestingly, the majority of our first PRO3 simulators have been sold to existing long-term customers who see the new technology as a way of expanding upon the positive results they have already experi- enced to date,” said Salfinger. “We were pleased to recently commission the first PRO3 simulator in Queensland, Australia, for a major international mining company and look forward to commissioning our other recent PRO3 sales in Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Peru, the United States and Zambia shortly.”

In 2010, Immersive Technologies also launched the UG360 simulator, specifi- cally designed for training underground equipment operators; the technology in- cludes a range of specialized features to support the unique operating conditions of subsurface mining.

The most recent sale of a UG360 was to underground contractor Barminco Ltd. In addition, two underground mining cus- tomers in Australia had previously acquired these simulators and have since incorpo- rated them into their operator training pro- grams. These, according to Immersive, include a leading copper miner in northern Queensland and large nickel producer in Western Australia.