Effects of Wearing Knee Supports on the Detection Threshold and Applicability of Redirected Walking

Redirected walking (RDW) is a locomotion technique that compresses expansive virtual reality (VR) spaces into smaller physical spaces by manipulating a user’s position and orientation in the real world. Previous studies have shown that wearing a knee-tightening device can expand the detection threshold (DT) in RDW. However, issues such as discomfort and walking difficulty with such devices remain unresolved. In this study, we conducted a preliminary experiment to examine whether the DT could be similarly expanded by wearing more comfortable knee supports. Additionally, our main experiment investigated the effect of comfortable supports on RDW applicability. The results indicated that while the impact of knee supports on DT could not be confirmed, a significant influence on RDW applicability was observed.