Evaluation of a virtual reality-based baseball batting training system using instantaneous bat swing information

Batting training practice aims at increasing the batting performance of baseball players. Traditional batting practice methods have been proven effective in increasing the players batting performance in real games. However, the feedback the player gets is limited to: The vibration of the bat, the sound of the impact and the ball trajectory. We propose a Virtual Reality-based (VR) baseball batting system that provides batters with instantaneous bat swing information as feedback. This information includes: Exact bat-ball impact location and angle, replay for swing timing and speed. The ability to review this swing information immediately after each swing may help batters to quantitatively adjust their swing to improve batting performance. In order to evaluate its effectiveness, we compared the proposed method against a traditional batting training method, during a short period. Results of our preliminary experiments show that the VR-based group batting performance, after a 10-day practice period, was comparable to the traditional group. Further experiments and analysis are required to assess the efficiency of the proposed method.