VR2Care breaks the current VR paradigm in smart living environments by enabling a multi-user mixed reality service, available for embodied exercising group in different physical locations at the same time and with expert exercise supervision. Motivation is empowered in VR2Care by a social commitment. A social experience of several people sharing difficulties and fighting isolation, replaces the “the patient/user and the application” paradigm, and the gamified entertainment experiences.
VR2Care aims to create age-friendly virtual environments fostering the use of interactive technologies for the promotion of physical activity and social interaction. The practice of physical activity and training are performed in a realistic multi-user virtual reality environment, where users are represented with real human forms, and with animations synchronised with natural movements (embodiment) and multimodal interactions combining voice, gestures and body movement. The environment also provides monitoring and guidance of physical activity by smart virtual assistant that combine artificial intelligence with direct human manipulation, according to the needs of each intervention allowing a multiple set of activities, from functional training to rehabilitation. The VR2Care platform is a unique environment for physical activity, training and rehabilitation which provides intelligent interfaces in a multiuser environment. It combines virtual reality technologies for supervised exercise with natural interaction techniques, by enhancing socialisation with the practice of physical activity.
The three major objectives of VR2Care project are:
1. To integrate technological, clinical, and social perspectives of using interactive technologies, ensuring that the VR2Care platform is innovative while also extending our scientific understanding and practice- based experiments of engaging the community for active and healthy ageing with physical activity and exercise.
2. To develop, implement and validate the VR2Care platform that leverages cutting-edge approaches including a multi-user virtual reality environment, natural interaction, pervasive monitoring of physical activity and smart virtual assistants, to produce a platform that is usable, adaptable, extendable and sustainable.
3. To explore and measure the level of engagement, effectiveness, and impact that the VR2Care platform has on older adults in the areas of physical activity and social interaction, validating this through small scale pilots involving a community of stakeholders in Europe, and providing an exploitation and business plan for the platform adoption.
