Future Cars Learn to Prevent Motion Sickness
A team from the University of Michigan has developed groundbreaking technology that could curb motion sickness in passengers—whether they're riding in today’s vehicles or the autonomous cars of tomorrow. By subtly adjusting the car’s seat motion in real time, the system tricks the brain into syncing with the body’s movements, easing the disconnect that causes nausea. Early tests show it could reduce symptoms by up to 50%. Say hello to smoother rides and screen time without the queasy side effects!
“We call it PREACT because it predicts the motions of the vehicle and acts preemptively to counteract the effect of the vehicle’s motion on the passenger’s body,” said Shorya Awtar , a U-M professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Precision Systems Design Laboratory. “We take real-time and historical data from on-vehicle sensors to help anticipate the vehicle’s impending motions and use that to alert passengers to what’s coming.”
Transcript
00:00:01 It's well known that drivers of a vehicle don't get motion sick while passengers get motion sick. Motion sickness affects a third of adults and half of all children. On the road, the main reason for motion sickness in passengers is because they aren't paying attention. When you're looking at a static object inside of a moving
00:00:22 vehicle, there is some confusion that happens inside of your brain because your eyes are processing that you remain static as you look at a static object, but your inner ear is detecting motion as you're moving inside of a moving vehicle. The driver of any vehicle, they know what they're doing. They are the ones who are hitting the brake. They are the ones who are turning the steering
00:00:42 wheel to take a right turn or a left turn. Because of that knowledge, they make certain preemptive and very subtle corrections. This helps them avoid motion sickness unlike passengers who cannot anticipate what's coming and are unable to make similar adjustments. With the development of autonomous vehicles, drivers will become passengers free to focus on other tasks during their ride,
00:01:05 but this can make them more susceptible to motion sickness. Over the past 5 years, Michigan engineering researchers in the precision systems design lab have developed innovative technologies that can reduce the effects of motion sickness called Pact. It reduces these effects by monitoring the road ahead to either encourage or initiate a counter
00:01:26 reaction for passengers. It's to inform the person about what is about to happen to their body and prevent their brain from tripping up and experiencing motion sickness. It is vitally important that we take into account the human factors associated with autonomous vehicles for autonomy to become the standard uh mode of
00:01:49 transportation. Pact works by using predictive algorithms and sensors to generate data that can predict the vehicle's movements. Once we make these predictions, we can determine what active correction do we want to do to provide the passenger with the best comfortable experience. In one implementation, the seat cushion can have embedded haptic motors. The kind of
00:02:09 motors that buzz in your cell phones to give you a notification. So, for example, if the car is about to make a left turn, we can vibrate the seat on the left that allows the passenger to anticipate the vehicle maneuvers and even take preemptive corrections themselves to counteract that vehicle motion. So, they can, for example, tighten up their core muscles or they
00:02:27 can slightly lean into the turn. In another implementation, the seat itself can have very gentle tip tilt motion capabilities. Instead of providing the cue to the passenger to let them know what to do, the active seat makes the corrections for the passengers themselves. So the active seat will tilt the person to the left if the vehicle is about to make a left turn. And it does
00:02:48 so slightly before that event happens to provide that preemptive correction that we talked about. So, every human-driven vehicle that has a passenger, a non-driving passenger, can benefit from this technology. Right now, the haptic solution is for someone that wants a easy to use plug-and-play motion sickness solution to their existing vehicle platform. The active
00:03:11 seat is integrated into a vehicle platform. So, it's normally for customers that are looking for that motion sickness mitigation when they're buying a vehicle. The researchers are continuing to develop Pact under their newly formed startup Motion Sync and have begun collaborating with a major automotive manufacturer to implement the technology. We want to give riders the
00:03:34 best possible experience inside of the cabin that they can achieve. And we want to allow them to reclaim that commute time to make the most out of the time they spend inside of their vehicles. And if motion sickness prevents them from doing that, that is something we want to address.