Electrooculogram-based virtual reality game control using blink detection and gaze calibration

This paper describes an Electrooculogram (EOG) and gaze based hands-free natural interaction system design for virtual reality (VR) games which enhances the immersive VR experience. The traditional interfaces like joysticks, mouse, keyboards, hand-worn data-gloves when used with VR HMD peripherals are obtrusive for virtual experience. This is a step further towards building see-and-play user interaction in VR games. This natural interface provides an enhanced gaming experience in which the user's virtual environment is interacting as per the eye movements. Electrooculogram based online eye blink detection and gaze calibration were carried out with average efficiency of 96% and 80% respectively. Based on the calibrated eye movements, the virtual environment in the “VRrailSurfer” is adjusted and interactions with the virtual game objects are carried out. Ten subjects (8 male, 2 female) were asked to play 5 trails of our prototype VR game “VRrailSurfer”. The average real-time game control accuracy across subjects was found to be 78%. The feasibility of obtaining EOG based VR game controls and the subjective analysis of user's immersive VR experience are also discussed.