360-Degree Immersive Experience for Indoor Cycling

Abstract

Indoor cycling is a concept that has emerged with technological advancements to serve multiple purposes such as fitness, virtual tourism, and leisure. Commercial solutions have been developed to serve different user groups, with emphasis on corresponding aspects of user experience. This paper proposes a novel approach to indoor cycling, combining key features including real-world 360-degree view, immersive environment, real-time interaction between the real and virtual worlds and dynamic resistance control to simulate changes in elevation. In the proposed solution, a mobile application provides an immersive cycling environment by playing 360-degree videos on a Virtual Reality headset. The environment responds to user movements such as head rotation and cycling speed changes, and in return replicates the actual resistance to the rider using automatic resistance control. These components are connected by a local Wi-Fi network and is fine-tuned for minimal latency based on international benchmarks. Our prototype system was tested for performance both qualitatively and quantitatively, particularly for the impact of the mobile device resolution and processing capabilities. Further improvements were identified to enhance the overall user experience