Engineering a mobile VR experience with MEMS 9DOF motion controller

It has been argued that the Virtual Reality (VR) experience is only complete when it includes appropriate motion controls. To enhance immersion, the player's field of vision, movement and any actions they perform should be constrained as little as possible. In this paper, we discuss the engineering and user experience testing of a novel mobile VR compatible controller which seeks to address limitations of typical VR controllers and joysticks in terms of the freedom of interactivity offered. The resulting artefact is a 9 DOF (Degrees of freedom) motion controller which uses Bluetooth to achieve connectivity to a mobile device. Sensor-based tracking is achieved by reengineering the existing MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical System) available in some smart phone models to track motion. A framework and heuristics to measure immersion is developed and user experience tested comparatively during gameplay in a mobile VR sports simulation. Sensor efficiency is also tested via a graphing-simulator.