I5 4590

Shown in Fig. 3a, the VR system consists of (1) a head-mounted display (HMD) (HTC Vive-VR); (2) a pair of wireless controllers; (3) two base stations, where steamVR® tracking technology tracks a subject’s exact location and movement through the headset and controllers; (4) a computer with a 4-core Intel® Core™ i5–4590 at 3.30 GHz, 8-GB random access memory (RAM), and a NVIDIA® Geforce® GTX 1070/MSI with 8 GB of GDDR5. Wearing the HMD and sitting in a wheelchair, subjects in the experimental group will interact with virtual objects in various scenarios.Fig. 3

Virtual reality (VR) system and a virtual scenario. a A subject is wearing a VR system. b A subject is playing basketball

Performance Edge VR was developed for the Oculus Rift VR platform, which requires a direct cable connection to a high-performance gaming laptop (minimum specifications: Intel i5-4590 or greater, NVIDIA GTX 1060 video card or greater, 8 GB+ RAM, Windows 10 and compatible video output; used in current study: Alienware Dell 15R3, Intel core i7-7700HQ, CPU@2.8 GHz, NVIDA GTX 1080, 16 GB RAM, Win 10 Pro) and external VR positioning sensors. Respiratory rate measurements and in-application biofeedback were provided by an EquiVital biosensor respiratory harness (Hidalgo, UK) with integrated transmitter (SEM), with the digital signal transmitted wirelessly via Bluetooth to the laptop. Intellectual property relating to Performance Edge VR is owned by The University of Newcastle. If interested in accessing Performance Edge VR application for research purposes, please contact the corresponding author.