Validation on Virtual Reality Focused on Pedestrian Perception against Personal Mobility Vehicles

Abstract

This paper validates reproducibility of a virtual reality simulation and reveals its feature, in order to investigate feasibility of virtual reality experiments for evaluation of safety and comfortability against personal mobility vehicles from the point of pedestrian view. 32 participants were gathered and played a pedestrian role. They experienced scenarios in which a personal mobility vehicle approached them in both virtual and real spaces. In each scenario, they gave their feedback of the perception against the approaching personal mobility vehicle including the spatial perception of distance and the subjective perception of safety and comfortability by questionnaire method. From a comparison of the questionnaire results of virtual space and real space, this paper clarified that virtual reality simulations are valid in terms of spatial perception when personal mobility vehicles approach from the front and the side of participants. It also revealed that the simulations are feasible when they approach from the front and behind regarding subjective perception.