Avoiding Carsickness When the Cars Drive Themselves

In the study, subjects narrated their levels of nausea during the route. Video cameras and wired sensors captured facial expressions, heart rate, skin temperature and changes in body and head posture. Those were indexed against precise metrics about the vehicle’s movement.

Ms. Jones wants to help people avoid and treat motion sickness. But at this early stage of her research, she’s merely aiming to better understand the “fundamentals of human response.” For example, there might be clues in how riders who get carsick hold their heads, maintain their posture or position the mobile devices they’re using. “I’m not out for the engineering solution directly,” Ms. Jones said.

But Florian Dauth, an automated-driving engineer for the ZF Group of Germany — one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers — is in the business of devising engineering solutions. He has been working for more than two years on strategies to reduce motion sickness in autonomous vehicles.

“We are developing algorithms that self-learn based on bodily reactions,” he said, referring to the machine-generated code that determines the vehicle’s path. To navigate the road safely, automated vehicles already receive and combine data from an arsenal of radar, laser, video and ultrasonic sensors. ZF says data about the passenger’s well-being should be added to the algorithm.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/business/motion-sickness-self-driving-cars.html?emc=rss&partner=rss