Detection Thresholds for Vertical Gains in VR and Drone-based Telepresence Systems

Several redirected walking techniques have been introduced and analyzed in recent years, while the main focus was on manipulations in horizontal directions, in particular, by means of curvature, rotation, and translation gains. However, less research has been conducted on the manipulation of vertical movements and its possible use as a redirection technique. Actually, vertical movements are fundamentally important, e.g., for remotely steering a drone using a virtual reality headset. In this paper, we explored vertical gains, a novel redirection technique, which enables us to purposefully manipulate the mapping of the user's physical vertical movements to movements in the virtual space and the remote space. This approach allows natural and more active physical control of a real drone. To demonstrate the usability of vertical gains, we implemented a telepresence drone and vertical redirection techniques for stretching and crouching actions using common VR devices. We conducted two user studies to investigate the effective manipulation ranges and its usability: one study using a virtual environment (VE), and one using a camera stream from a telepresence drone. The results revealed that our technique could manipulate a users vertical movement without her/his noticing.