Motion sickness technology offers hope for those who get carsick
Few weekends send more people on long car journeys than Memorial Day Weekend, with AAA estimating as many as 39 million people hitting the road this year. But unfortunately, motion sickness could make those trips uncomfortable and unpleasant for many people.
Engineers at the University of Michigan have developed a new technology, ready for implementation in current vehicles, that reduces motion sickness by nearly half. For the one out of every two children and one in three adults who suffer from the condition, it’s an option that comes without the drowsiness of medications.
U-M’s approach focuses on the cause of motion sickness—vehicle movements that catch passengers off-guard when they aren’t watching the road ahead. Called PREACT, the technology sends cues through the seat to alert those passengers to upcoming movements. It can also tilt the seat to mimic the way the body would naturally prepare for turning and braking if the passenger’s eyes were on the road to see what was coming.
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