Jaguar and Land Rover teach driverless cars how to reduce motion sickness

Jaguar and Land Rover are hoping you won't feel queasy in their upcoming autonomous vehicles. Vom is hard to clean off beautiful leather and Alcantara upholstery after all...

To achieve the goal of minimal motion sickness, the luxury car brands have created something known as a ‘wellness score’ which when applied could reduce the impact of motion sickness by up to 60%. Engineers and developers have now implemented that score into their self-driving software systems.

The software combines 20,000 real-world and virtually-simulated testing kilometres to calculate a set of parameters for driving dynamics to be rated against. Advanced machine learning then allows the car to change and optimise its driving style based on the data gathered from every kilometre driven.

This tech can then be used to teach each Jaguar and Land Rover vehicle how to drive autonomously while still maintaining the well-known characteristics of each brand and model, whether that’s the performance of a Jaguar coupe or the legendary capability of a Land Rover SUV.

Motion sickness affects more than 70 per cent of people and is often caused when the eyes observe information different from that sensed by the inner ear, skin or body. It commonly occurs when reading a book or text on a device during long journeys in a vehicle. Using the new system, acceleration, braking and lane positioning, which are all contributing factors to motion sickness can be optimised to avoid giving that horrible nauseating feeling to passengers.

This development has allowed engineers to refine driver-assistance tech features for upcoming Jaguar and Land Rover models, such as adaptive cruise control and lane monitoring systems.

Dr Steve Iley, Jaguar Land Rover Chief Medical Officer, said: “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.”

As well as pure driving dynamics and motion, current features such as cooling seats, ambient lighting and multiple seat configurations can significantly reduce the likelihood of motion sickness and are being worked into the future driverless car equation.

In a post COVID-19 world, where a ‘new normal’ is emerging, our expectations of how we move around our cities and country are changing, with a bigger focus on safe, clean mobility where personal space and hygiene will carry a premium. If a future of personal driverless cars is being fast-tracked, motion sickness will be up there as one of the most pivotal factors for consumers looking to make the move.

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