Jaguar Land Rover teaches self-driving cars to reduce motion sickness

Jaguar Land Rover is developing a programme that will allow self-driving cars to adapt their driving style to reduce motion sickness among passengers.

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 adjusts its driving style accordingly.

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. Although JLR refused to comment on future product plans, a spokesperson said that the system's principles "can be applied to any vehicle with increased levels of automation".

JLR’s chief medical officer, Dr Steve Iley, 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.”

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.