Development and testing of a virtual reality-based gait analysis tool–a pilot study

Abstract Nowadays, numerous virtual applications are available, and new ideas are emerging for additional fields of application, such as gait analysis. In this context, it is beneficial to develop a tool that can both 1) generate stimuli to prompt certain actions from the trainees and 2) quantify these actions. Consequently, a prototype of a virtual reality application was developed to measure participants’ gait without incurring additional cost-intensive technological components. Before developing training scenarios and determining performance-relevant parameters, fundamental ones must be tested first. Twenty physical unrestricted participants were asked to walk twenty times along a 4-m-long path at a leisurely pace, measured by the already established OptoGait System (OG), and twice by the virtual reality system under two different conditions (60 runs in total). In the first condition, participants walked the path within the virtual reality measured by the HTC VIVE trackers (VR). Secondly, they perceived the real world with the head-mounted display removed but were still tracked VIVE trackers (VT) to exclude the environmental factor. Four parameters—number of steps, step length, ground contact times, and gait time—were chosen to provide initial insights. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with the between-subject factor system [OG, VR, VT] and the dependent variables gait time and step length revealed a significant difference between the conditions ( p < .01). For the others, no significant differences were observed. This study indicates that virtual reality systems have the potential to measure gait characteristics, and further recommendations for improvement are suggested.