VR sickness issues

Because of the connection to locomotion, vection once again arises (Section 8.4). Many of the suggestions from Section 10.2 to reduce vection can be applied here, such as reducing the contrast or the field of view while the robot is moving. Now consider some robot-specific suggestions. Users may be more comfortable controlling the robot themselves rather than a higher level of autonomy, even though it involves tedious concentration. Furthermore, the path itself determined by a motion planning algorithm could be optimized to reduce sickness by shortening times over which accelerations occur or by avoiding close proximity to walls or objects that have high spatial frequency and contrast. Another idea is to show the motion on a 2D or 3D map while the robot is moving, from a third-person perspective. The user could conceivably be shown anything, such as news feeds, while the robot is moving. As in the case of locomotion for virtual worlds, one must be careful not to disorient the user by failing to provide enough information to easily infer the new position and orientation relative to the old one by the time the user has arrived.

Steven M LaValle 2020-01-06