Motion sickness sucks. For the percentage of the population who are susceptible to this rotten affliction, simply going for a drive with someone else at the wheel is cause enough to turn greener than a twenty-dollar bill, money soon to be spent on a bottle of Febreze to get rid of the smell. The crew at Volkswagen, mindful that bouts of sick can come on even faster in a self-driving car, are working on ways to quell the queasy. At its root, the confusion between the motion your eyes see and the motion your body feels. This is why your author cannot read for an extended time as a passenger. According to VW, about a third of all people are susceptible to it – women more than men, children more than adults – but under the right conditions, anyone can suffer. At the VW research labs in Wolfsburg, scientists are studying what can trigger car sickness and potential ways to help prevent it from happening in a future where the car can mostly drive itself. In one test, researchers are exploring whether changes to the vehicles themselves might help prevent motion sickness, such as via special movable seats that can react to driving changes; and an LED light strip on the door panel that illuminates in green or red. The latter is intended to provide a visual cue for the passenger of braking or acceleration. Out on the test track, volunteers don various sensors and cameras designed to measure pulse, skin temperature, and changes in skin tone. On a 20-minute drive, the sedan will use Automatic Cruise Control to follow a semi-autonomous Passat. During this particular test, a tablet plays video of swimming fish for the volunteer to watch. As the car drives, the volunteer rates their state of health on a tablet. For most, it doesn’t take long to feel ill. VW’s boffins are hoping their inventions can help remove that feeling, though they haven’t released that data quite yet. Autonomous cars are coming – not today, not tomorrow, but eventually – and it’s research like this that’ll help deal with problems most of us haven’t thought of yet. Until then, the rest of us can just keep a bottle of Febreze
Origin: VW’s working on tech to keep you from getting sick in autonomous cars