Rendering of Virtual Walking Sensation by a Passive Body Motion

This paper describes a rendering technique of a virtual walking sensation for the seated user on a multisensory VR (virtual reality) display system. A basic approach is to move a participant’s body mechanically to produce the sensation of walking where the participant’s body is considered as a part of display media that projects the sensation of a body motion to the brain. A motion seat was built and used to create lift and roll motions in the present study. As a basic reference data, a real walking motion on a treadmill was measured. The lift and roll motions were independently investigated to clarify characteristics of each presentation. The optimal seat motion for the sensation of walking was as small as about one fifteenth to a fifth of the real walking motion.