Arm swinging vs treadmill: A comparison between two techniques for locomotion in virtual reality

When it comes to locomotion in Virtual Reality (VR), a wide range of different techniques has been proposed in the scientific literature or as commercial products. However, the best choice for a specific application is still not immediate, being each technique characterized by different advantages and drawbacks. The present work reports on the results of a user study-based comparison between two methods: a locomotion treadmill, which supports omni-directional movements through walking in place over a hardware device, and Arm Swinging, which recognizes movement from the swinging back and forth of the user's arms (e.g., gathered by sensors embedded in hand controllers). Experiments have been carried out in a realistic immersive VR scenario, which requested users to respond to a fire emergency in a road tunnel by moving and interacting with the environment.