The CyberWalk Platform: Human-Machine Interaction Enabling Unconstrained Walking through VR

In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) has become increasingly realistic and immersive. Both the visual and auditory rendering of virtual environments have been improved significantly, thanks to developments in both hardware and software. In contrast, the possibilities for physical navigation through virtual environments (VE) are still relatively rudimentary. Most commonly, users can ‘move’ through highfidelity virtual environments using a mouse or a joystick. Of course, the most natural way to navigate through VR would be to walk. For small scale virtual environments one can simply walk within a confined space. The VE can be presented by a cave-like projection system, or by means of a head-mounted display combined with head-tracking. For larger VEs, however, this quickly becomes impractical or even impossible