Researchers from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Korea, in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, have developed a novel foot-based VR locomotion system called “Seamless-walk,” which provides a more natural and comfortable locomotion experience without the use of any walking equipment or a video of the user’s body pose while walking or running. Seamless-walk is a virtual reality gaming controller with an intelligent carpet sensor that has immediate and long-term uses. It works as follows: while the user wanders around, the intelligent carpet takes high-resolution foot pressure impressions in real time. The footprint data is loaded into a machine learning model, which uses a technique known as “K-means clustering” to extract the high pressure spots. The angle and movement speed are then estimated using the user’s body direction and foot intervals. The researchers tested the system on 80 people in a 3D virtual world exploration game, revealing that the unique technology provides an immersive, natural, and pleasant experience. The team intends to add more sophisticated gait analysis features to the present system in the future to enable fall detection and health monitoring in a comfortable and private manner. This unique advancement has the potential to revolutionise gait analysis in virtual reality gaming and health care.

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