Design of a new sensor architecture for mechatronic systems interconnected with virtual environments

Virtual environments benefit from omnidirectional platforms such as Virtusphere (VS) where the user can move freely. These platforms are typically mechanical and do not provide any feedback to Virtual Reality (VR) application, the orientation of the user being provided by the VR headset. To improve such a system, an additional sensory system is needed to gather data about the user's movement and not just orientation. This paper presents the design and development of a new sensory system for the omnidirectional platform VS. The scope of this sensory system is to provide the mechatronic drive system for Virtusphere (DMSVS) with information about the user's movement and orientation inside the sphere. At the end of the article will be presented experiments conducted to determine the accuracy and correctness of data, followed by a method of transmitting and processing it.