Natural Locomotion Based on Foot-Mounted Inertial Sensors in a Wireless Virtual Reality System

Abstract

Virtual reality has become a promising field in recent decades, and its potential now seems clearer than ever. With the development of handheld devices and wireless technologies, interest in virtual reality is also increasing. Therefore, there is an accompanying interest in inertial sensors, which can provide such advantages as small size and low cost. Such sensors can also operate wirelessly and be used in an increasing number of interactive applications. An example related to virtual reality is the ability to move naturally through virtual environments. This is the objective of the real-walking navigation technique, for which a number of advantages have previously been reported in terms of presence, object searching, and collision, among other concerns. In this article, we address the use of foot-mounted inertial sensors to achieve real-walking navigation in a wireless virtual reality system. First, an overall description of the problem is presented. Then, specific difficulties are identified, and a corresponding technique is proposed to overcome each: tracking of foot movements; determination of the user’s position; percentage estimation of the gait cycle, including oscillating movements of the head; stabilization of the velocity of the point of view; and synchronization of head and body yaw angles. Finally, a preliminary evaluation of the system is conducted in which data and comments from participants were collected.

The New Era of Virtual Reality Locomotion: A Systematic Literature Review of Techniques and a Proposed Typology

“…The user's position and orientation are determined, usually by tracking the HMD's position [22,33] or the user's limb movements [44,46,50].…”

“…The categorization of a study as a usability, user experience, user perception or technical study took place following a Boolean logic, without examining the extent to which those topics were covered. For instance, even if only one aspect of the user experience was examined in a study (e.g., the sense of a user's VR presence [46]) along with a series of usability issues, the study was registered as having both a user experience and usability research topic. Naturally, it would be challenging, if not impossible or invalid, to quantify the extent to which research topics are covered.…”

User position tracking system using marker-based AR for exploring VR museum galleries

“…Sistem ini memiliki keterbatasan untuk digunakan dalam aplikasi umum karena perlu ukuran ruang yang sedikit besar. Penelitian ini kemudian disempurnakan dalam [20], yang memeriksa perilaku pengguna yang berjalan dengan menggunakan jaringan syaraf tiruan dan menganalisis koordinat dalam HMD untuk meningkatkan kehadiran di lingkungan virtual. Sistem ini menghasilkan kajian bahwa kehadiran dan pengalaman pengguna yang alami menjadi lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan kendali konvensional untuk navigasi virtual, hanya kedua sistem ini menggunakan platform desktop VR yang memerlukan spesifikasi komputer tinggi.…”

“…Pada posisi tersebut kamera dari smartphone tidak dapat menangkap penanda. Penelitian ini belum melakukan analisis hasil pengalaman pengguna seperti [20], yang menggunakan metode jaringan syaraf tiruan.…”

Loose Coupling of Wearable-Based INSs with Automatic Heading Evaluation

“…Then, a constraint of maximum separation between the two position estimates is applied to limit the growing drift in the heading. In [ 21 ], four IMUs are used to implement a navigation system for a virtual reality application. The orientation estimation of the head-mounted IMU is aided by the chest-mounted and the feet-mounted IMUs.…”