A standardised and cost-effective VR approach for powered wheelchair training

Mastering wheelchair driving skills is essential for the safety of wheelchair users (WUs), yet the acquisition of these skills can be challenging, and training resources can be costly or not available. Technologies such as virtual reality (VR) have grown in popularity as they can provide a motivating training environment without the risks found in real-life training. However, these approaches often deploy navigation controllers which are different from the ones WUs utilise, and do not use a standardised approach in assessing the acquisition of skills. We propose a VR training system based on the wheelchair skills training program (WSTP) and utilizing a sensor device that can be retrofitted to any joystick and communicates wirelessly with a Head-Mounted Display. In this paper, we present a first-validation study with fourteen able-bodied participants, split between a VR test group and a non-VR control group. To determine the acquisition of skills, participants complete tasks in real-life before and after the VR training, where completion time and length of joystick movements are measured. We also assess our system using heart rate measurements, the WSTP questionnaire, the simulator sickness questionnaire and the igroup presence questionnaire. We found that the VR training facilitates the acquisition of skills for more challenging tasks; thus, our system has the potential of being used for training skills of powered wheelchair users, with the benefit of conducting the training in safely and in a low-cost setup.