Autonomy and social inclusion can reveal themselves everyday challenges for people experiencing mobility impairments. These people can benefit from technical aids such as power wheelchairs to access mobility and overcome social exclusion. However, power wheelchair driving is a challenging task which requires good visual, cognitive and visuo-spatial abilities. Besides, a power wheelchair can cause material damage or represent a danger of injury for others or oneself if not operated safely. Therefore, training and repeated practice are mandatory to acquire safe driving skills to obtain power wheelchair prescription from therapists. However, conventional training programs may reveal themselves insufficient for some people with severe impairments. In this context, Virtual Reality offers the opportunity to design innovative learning and training programs while providing realistic wheelchair driving experience within a virtual environment. In line with this, we propose a user-centered design of a multisensory power wheelchair simulator. This simulator addresses classical virtual experience drawbacks such as cybersickness and sense of presence by combining 3D visual rendering, haptic feedback and motion cues. It relies on a modular and versatile workflow enabling not only easy interfacing with any virtual display, but also with any user interface such as wheelchair controllers or feedback devices. This paper presents the design of the first implementation as well as its first commissioning through pretests. The first setup achieves consistent and realistic behavior.

Autonomy and the ability to maintain social activities can be challenging for people with disabilities experiencing reduced mobility. In the case of disabilities that impact mobility, power wheelchairs can help such people retain or regain autonomy. Nonetheless, driving a power wheelchair is a complex task that requires a combination of cognitive, visual and visuo-spatial abilities. In practice, people need to pass prior ability tests and driving training before being prescribed a power wheelchair by their therapist. Still, conventional training in occupational therapy can be insufficient for some people with severe cognitive and/or visuo-spatial functions. As such, these people are often prevented from obtaining a power wheelchair prescription from their therapist due to safety concerns. In this context, driving simulators might be efficient and promising tools to provide alternative, adaptive, flexible, and safe training. In previous work, we proposed a Virtual Reality (VR) driving simulator integrating vestibular feedback to simulate wheelchair motion sensations. The performance and acceptability of a VR simulator rely on satisfying user Quality of Experience (QoE). Therefore, our simulator is designed to give the user a high Sense of Presence (SoP) and low Cybersickness. This paper presents a pilot study assessing the impact of the vestibular feedback provied on user QoE. Participants were asked to perform a driving task whilst in the simulator under two conditions: with and without vestibular feedback. User QoE is assessed through subjective questionnaires measuring user SoP and cybersickness. The results show that vestibular feedback activation increases SoP and decreases cybersickness. This study constitutes a mandatory step before clinical trials and, as such, only enrolled people without disabilities.

Power wheelchairs are one of the main solutions for people with reduced mobility to maintain or regain autonomy and a comfortable and fulfilling life. However, driving a power wheelchair in a safe way is a difficult task that often requires training methods based on real-life situations. Although these methods are widely used in occupational therapy, they are often too complex to implement and unsuitable for some people with major difficulties. In this context, we collaborated with clinicians to develop a Virtual Reality based power wheelchair simulator. This simulator is an innovative training tool adapted to any type of situations and impairments. In this paper, we present a clinical study in which 29 power wheelchair regular users were asked to complete a clinically validated task designed by clinicians within two conditions: driving in a virtual environment with our simulator and driving in real conditions with a real power wheelchair. The objective of this study is to compare performances between the two conditions and to evaluate the Quality of Experience provided by our simulator in terms of Sense of Presence and Cybersickness. Results show that participants complete the tasks in a similar amount of time for both real and virtual conditions, using respectively a real power wheelchair and our simulator. Results also show that our simulator provides a high level of Sense of Presence and provokes only slight to moderate Cybersickness discomforts resulting in a valuable Quality of Experience.

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Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate users tolerance and driving performance of an electric wheelchair driving simulator in comparison to a test on a real circuit in the context of the SIMADAPT project. Methods Three real circuits intended to assess the driving performance with power wheelchair (PWC) in an indoor traffic situation were defined. These circuits were then modelled in 3D to create three test scenarios in virtual reality. These three sessions corresponded to the three levels of driving difficulty. Users tested the three circuits in virtual reality (VR) on a simulator and on a real circuit (R) during three different sessions. In each session, users tested the two conditions. Number of collisions, time of completion, cognitive load and driving performances were assessed. Cyber sickness, users satisfaction and sense of presence were measured in VR. The order of passage between R and VR was randomized. Results Twenty-nine participants who were expert drivers with neurological disorders were included in the study. Number of collision between R and VR were identical for circuits 1 and 2 but higher for circuit 3 in VR (p = 0,006 and 0,008), the RV completion times were longer in C1 and C2 (p = < 0.001, 0.01), however it tended to decreased for C3 (difference were not significant for second run). The mental load was higher in VR than R (p = 0,001; 0,01;0,03). The sense of presence was good and the cybersickness remained low on the three circuits Conclusions Simulator is valid technological solution for expert drivers. The performances were equivalent between R and VR and there was a quick adaptation to the virtual application, without any noticeable unexpected effects. Future researches are needed to assess the quality of skill transfer for novice drivers from the simulator to the real world.