Gait patterns during overground and virtual omnidirectional treadmill walking.

Background: Omnidirectional treadmills (ODTs) offer a promising solution to the virtual reality (VR) locomotion problem, which describes the mismatch between visual and somatosensory information and contributes to VR sickness. However, little is known about how walking on ODTs impacts the biomechanics of gait. This project aimed to compare overground and ODT walking and turning in healthy young adults.

Methods: Fifteen young adults completed forward walk, 180° turn, and 360° turn tasks under three conditions: (1) overground, (2) on the Infinadeck ODT in a virtual environment without a handrail, and (3) on the ODT with a handrail. Kinematic data for all walking trials were gathered using 3D optical motion capture.

Results: Overall, gait speed was slower during ODT walking than overground. When controlling for gait speed, ODT walking resulted in shorter steps and greater variability in step length. There were no significant differences in other spatiotemporal metrics between ODT and overground walking. Turning on the ODT required more steps and slower rotational speeds than overground turns. The addition of the stability handrail to the ODT resulted in decreased gait variability relative to the ODT gait without the handrail.

Conclusion: Walking on an ODT resembles natural gait patterns apart from slower gait speed and shorter step length. Slower walking and shorter step length are likely due to the novelty of physically navigating a virtual environment which may result in a more conservative approach to gait. Future work will evaluate how older adults and those with neurological disease respond to ODT walking.