New VR system lets you share sights on the move without causing VR sickness - Tech Xplore

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University person engineered a virtual world (VR) distant collaboration strategy which lets users connected Segways stock not lone what they spot but besides the feeling of acceleration arsenic they move. Riders equipped with cameras and accelerometers tin feedback their sensations to a distant idiosyncratic connected a modified wheelchair wearing a VR headset. User surveys showed important simplification successful VR sickness, promising a amended acquisition for distant collaboration activities.

Virtual world (VR) exertion is making accelerated headway, letting users acquisition and stock an immersive, 3D environment. In the tract of distant work, 1 of the large advances it offers is simply a accidental for workers successful antithetic locations to stock what they spot and perceive successful real-time.

An illustration is users connected idiosyncratic mobility devices successful ample warehouse facilities, factories, and operation sites. Riders tin screen ample areas with easiness portion highlighting issues successful real-time to a distant co-worker. However, 1 large drawback tin ruin the full experience: VR sickness. VR sickness is simply a benignant of motion sickness which comes from users seeing "motion" done their headsets without really moving. Symptoms see headaches, nausea, and sometimes vomiting. The occupation is peculiarly acute for the illustration above, erstwhile the idiosyncratic sharing the acquisition is moving about.

To get astir this issue, researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University led by Assistant Professor Vibol Yem person created a strategy which lets users stock not lone what they see, but the sensation of question arsenic well. They focused connected Segways arsenic a common, wide disposable idiosyncratic mobility vehicle, mounting 2 3D cameras and a acceptable of accelerometers to measurement not lone visual cues but elaborate accusation connected the acceleration of the vehicle. This was fed backmost via the net to a distant idiosyncratic wearing a VR headset connected a modified wheelchair, with abstracted motors attached to the wheels.

As the idiosyncratic connected the Segway accelerated, truthful did the wheelchair, allowing distant users to not lone spot the aforesaid scenery, but consciousness the aforesaid acceleration. Of course, the wheelchair wasn't allowed to determination the aforesaid distances arsenic the Segway; it was mildly returned to its archetypal presumption erstwhile the Segway was not accelerating.

The squad enactment their instrumentality to the trial by asking volunteers to go distant users and complaint their experience. There was a simplification successful VR sickness of 54% erstwhile the sensations of question were added, with fantabulous ratings for the idiosyncratic experience. They besides noticed subtleties successful however the accusation should beryllium fed back. For example, users recovered it champion erstwhile astir 60% of the acceleration suggested by the ocular cues was fed backmost to the wheels, mostly owed to the sensitivity of the vestibular strategy (how we consciousness balance, predisposition and motion) compared to our vision.

Though improvements are inactive needed, the team's strategy promises breathtaking caller possibilities for distant collaboration, freeing distant users from a large drawback of VR technology. The survey is published successful Advanced Robotics.

More information: Vibol Yem et al, Vehicle-ride sensation sharing strategy with stereoscopic 3D ocular cognition and vibro-vestibular feedback for immersive distant collaboration, Advanced Robotics (2022). DOI: 10.1080/01691864.2022.2129033

Provided by Tokyo Metropolitan University