Unity Development: Virtual Goalkeeper

Recently, a Virtual Reality lab has opened at the Department of Human Movement Sciences at the University Medical Center Groningen (HMS/UMCG). One of the setups in this VR lab includes a VICON motion capture system and Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs). The VR lab will be used to perform studies into the control of human movement, allowing manipulation of virtual environments and the collection of high-quality motion data. To be able to use the setups for running scientific experiments, apart from integrating motion capture and presentation of content, also a management system for presenting experimental trials has to be in place. The present project takes the paradigm of lateral interception, within an ongoing study program, to develop all the components for arriving at such a system.

Primary Discipline: Programming 

Project Highlights: Integration of motion capture technology in a VR game space and collation of data from both. 

The present project builds on previous work in which we attempt to identify the information that people use to control their interceptive actions. For this specific project, we consider a goalkeeper, whose movement is restricted sideways along the goal line and who will be facing balls approaching the goalmouth. These balls will follow trajectories of varying direction, speed, and sideway curvature. The goalkeeper's task is to intercept the balls (interception definition to be developed in relation to body position; specifics to be discussed in project design with the project supervisor and in response to individual student research). 

The hardware of the setup is available at the Department of Human Movement Sciences at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). The football keeper will operate in a virtual environment, offered to them through a head-mounted display (HMD). Tracking of the motion of the goalkeeper takes place with a VICON system. Several components of the integration of the motion capture and the HMD-presented virtual environment have been developed. The present project will use these components and develop additional ones to create a system in which experiments with lateral interception can be performed. 

The full system is expected to adhere to the following requirements: 

• Environment: the system will present a virtual environment to participants, in which the participants are goalkeepers who have to "catch" approaching balls. 
• Motion Capture Live Update: motion of the participants will be captured with VICON; this motion will be used to update the participants view and virtual position represented in game. 
• Trajectory Calculation: the system will allow the presentation of balls following several predefined trajectories. 
• Interception detection: the system will detect an interception based on to-be-developed criterion involving real-time participant and trajectory kinematics. 
• Trial-Based Sessions: the trials (with varying ball trajectories) will be presented in a blocked random order. 
• Systems Data Sync: kinematics of the participants, synchronized with the kinematics of the balls, will be saved per trial for later analyses. 
• Data Management: summary statistics (such as on success or failure to "catch") will be saved in a summary file. 

This project builds on previous components, to arrive at a full operational system for experimentation. Some new components will have to be developed, and all components will have to be integrated into the final system. 

Students pursuing an internship or graduation project are encouraged to apply.