Analysing Effect of Vehicle Lean Using Cybernetic Model of Motion Sickness

Abstract

Objective and quantitative evaluation of ride comfort can be achieved owing to recent advances in cybernetic models. Therefore, we developed a mathematical model for analyzing motion sickness and utilized it to evaluate comfort in vehicle riding. It is known that the inclination of the head toward the gravito-inertial force (GIF) decreases the severity of motion sickness; this research focused on the motion sickness incidence (MSI) as an evaluation index for ride comfort. Thus, we hypothesized that those vehicles that have a function to tilt driver/passenger seats toward the GIF direction, which is called the lean function, decrease motion sickness and increase comfort. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to investigate the comfort of a four-wheeled vehicle with a lean function. It was revealed that by adding the lean function, the head could be tilted in the GIF direction; the MSI was calculated using the mathematical model and subjective motion sickness decreased. The correlation analysis of head-roll angular velocity and vehicle centrifugal acceleration suggested that drivers tilted their heads before the occurrence of the vehicle lateral acceleration.