Jaguar Land Rover Software Could Cure Motion Sickness In Driverless Cars
JLR are training their autonomous concept car to reduce travel sickness. The new software measures passenger comfort and signals the autonomous vehicle to adjust its driving style accordingly.
The programme is based on software that uses biometric sensors to detect how susceptible individual drivers and passengers are to getting car sick.
This data is then used by the system to find the ideal acceleration, braking and lane positioning to reduce motion sickness by up to 60%. The autonomous car then modifies its driving style accordingly.
This news greatly benefits passengers that would like to read during long journeys but can’t without feeling nauseous!
Thought to affect more than 70 per cent of people, motion sickness is typically caused when the eyes observe information different from that sensed by the inner ear, skin or body. Using the new system, acceleration, braking and lane positioning – all contributory factors to motion sickness – can be optimised to avoid inducing nausea in passengers.
The software, which has been fine-tuned over 20,000 real-world and virtually simulated test miles racked up through JLR’s autonomous fleet, is expected to be integrated into the company’s future production cars as driver assist technology develops.
See how the new system would work, here:
JLR’s chief medical officer, Dr Steve Iley, commented: ‘Mobility is rapidly changing, and we will need to harness the power of self-driving vehicles to achieve our goal of zero accidents and zero congestion.
‘Solving the problem of motion sickness in driverless cars is the key to unlocking the huge potential of this technology for passengers, who will be able to use the travelling time for reading, working or relaxing.’
The program is part of JLR’s wider Destination Zero initiative, which aims to make driving safer by lowering CO2 emissions, accidents and congestion. Project Vector, an autonomous concept car, was recently revealed as part of this scheme.
You can learn more about Jaguar Land Rover’s Project Vector, here.
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