Research to eliminate car motion sickness in autonomous driving

A research team at the University of Michigan is conducting research to eliminate car sickness in autonomous vehicles. In the future, you may be able to do other things, such as reading in an autonomous vehicle. When riding a car that is driven by people, people worry about car sickness, but what will happen in an autonomous vehicle? In order to find out this, an experiment is conducted to explain why people get car sick.

Monica Jones, head of project research, says that although a lot of research has been done on motion sickness, little research has been done using cars, and platforms such as drive simulators have been used. In addition, although numerous related measures appear, most of them measure nausea, and point out that designing according to the nausea response may lead to a complete deviation in the case of autonomous vehicles.

The research team gathered 52 people from various social classes. They made them run through the Mcity Test Facility that they created on campus. The driver usually stopped or accelerated while turning around the corner, as when running a real distance. Subjects were asked to perform simple tasks using an iPad in the vehicle. They were also asked to answer the researchers’ questions in the vehicle. The subject observed the expression of displeasure and asked to notify if he felt he was feeling bad. It also has a sensor to investigate changes in body temperature or sweating.

There was no surprise at all in the results of the first experiment. In fact, it is not surprising that the use of electronic devices in self-driving vehicles causes severe car sickness. However, nothing has actually been verified so far. Direct observation revealed other factors. The younger the person, the higher the level of the car away. But why?

The research team says the passenger response is complex and has many different aspects. To measure these reactions, the team compiled a database of thousands of measurements and observations. This includes not only the mere degree of unhappiness, but also the context, other types of pain, and discomfort. Of course, this study is only the beginning of a long study to make autonomous vehicles available to as many people as possible. Related information can be found here .