Motion sickness is slated to become a more prominent problem once self-driving cars become a commonality. Interiors of vehicles are expected to be much different than those of today’s forward-facing cars, including blackout windows with TVs inside for playing video games and watching movies. Even those not prone to motion sickness may have trouble when they’re playing Fortnite inside a self-driving car on twisty roads.
There have been some interesting technologies, including special fluid-filled glasses from Citroën, that may help some people, but researchers at the University of Michigan are looking to address this problem in a systematic way, which may help them to find numerous ways to lower the impact of motion sickness in cars.
The team has developed a way to measure how different driving patterns and activities affect the development of motion sickness. This has led to an entire protocol, published in a white paper, that can be used to evaluate the relationship between driving and the performance of tasks by passengers.
The researchers used their methodology and accompanying technology to perform a large-scale analysis of how acceleration impacts reading performance of passengers using an Apple iPad mini.
Here’s a University of Michigan video about the study:
Flashback: Citroën Unveils Glasses That Help Alleviate Motion Sickness
White paper: Queasy Passengers: A Testbed for Motion Sickness in Driverless Vehicles