Jaguar Land Rover Develops New Technique to Counter Motion Sickness

Jaguar Land Rover has pioneered a new technique that could help reduce cases of motion sickness by at least 60 percent. While motorists are less likely to develop motion sickness, passengers, especially young children are highly susceptible to motion sickness, especially in the case of long journeys. With the advent of automated vehicles and more people set to become passengers, the use of this new technique that Jaguar Land Rover has developed can make travelling more comfortable.

The company’s wellness research engineer, Spencer Salter used a number of test vehicles and other Jaguar Land Rover facilities to come up with a technique to measure what he called ‘an individual’s wellness score’. This would serve as an indicator of a person’s susceptibility to motion sickness or what is scientifically called kinetosis.

The device that uses to calculate this score is still in development and is undergoing patent approval, so Jaguar Land Rover has not disclosed any technical details about this device. It has revealed though that the device uses non-invasive biometric sensors that are used to record physiological signals. This data is when used in combination with motion and dynamics data can indicate when someone is becoming motion sick even before they experience any symptoms.
These sensors will be placed in places where they are not very visible, like on door handles and the scores that they capture are then put through a complex algorithm by the vehicle’s computer. Using this data, the dynamic and cabin features are then adapted depending on the individual’s score. These settings can even be saved for future journeys.

Jaguar says that by adapting the driving and cabin environment to an individual’s needs, the ‘wellness score’ technology can reduce motion sickness by 60%.

This new technology can be used to further enhance the automated travel experience. Salter said that the company has continued to work on its self-driving technology so that the company’s autonomous development is the smoothest, least motion-sickness inducing and ultimately the most comfortable experience so that the passengers can enjoy other activities in an autonomous vehicle

The technology is expected to be deployed in Jaguar Land Rover vehicles over the next three to five years.