Uber is going to make car sickness a thing of the past—especially in driverless cars

Uber is working to reduce the effect of car sickness, especially felt in self-driving cars, according to a new patent published earlier this year.

The patent introduces Uber's "Sensory Stimulation System," something we could see implemented in autonomous vehicles in the future.

The system aims to work by synchronising what you see and feel.

Often, the feeling of nausea happens when your eyes see something different to what your brain perceives. For example, going down a roller coaster often leads to nausea because you're sitting down and not moving, but your eyes are taking a 360 degree turn.

What Uber wants is to create a system to trick your body into movement that resembles what your eyes see.

More air and moveable seats

One aspect of the system relies on moveable seats. According to Uber's patent, the seats "can include haptic functionality" and motors that can move the seat, and in doing so trick the brain.

The second part relies on a pressurised airflow system that can target specific parts of the rider's body.

Finally, Uber is considering introducing a "light bar," visible within the cabin, which can emit lights at different colours and brightness settings to mimic a direction change.

But are these measures likely to reduce air sickness?

Well, yes and no. According to a study by scientific journal Experiment Brain Research, exposure to airflow is shown to significantly reduce motion sickness. Seat vibration however, was shown by the study to have little impact in reducing motion sickness.

And the patent, targeted at autonomous vehicles, makes sense in terms of Uber's direction.

Autonomous vehicles, at present, may drive in a slightly more jerky way compared with human drivers, since their priority is safety. Frequent braking may elevate the feeling of car sickness in sensitive riders.

Earlier on Monday, Uber announced that it was planning to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo. This means you could see a flood of Uber-owned driverless vehicles filling up your streets within the next few years.

There's no telling whether these patents will actually be commercialised and put into action -- most are unlikely to ever see the light of day. But what it does show is that Uber's really trying to perfect the driverless experience.