乘坐自动驾驶汽车时如何才能不晕车呢？
那些推广自动驾驶汽车理念的人热切期望人们在乘车的同时可以做其他事情，比如读书看报，拿出手提电脑工作，抑或小睡一会儿。但是大部分人却觉得这不太可能实现。根据密歇根大学在2014年发表的一项研究，目前约有23%的美国人根本无意乘坐自动驾驶汽车，除此之外，还有36%的人虽然愿意乘坐这种汽车，但也不会让视线离开行驶道路。其中一些人，特别是人群中经常出现晕动病不适症状的5%到10%的人，可能会看向窗外，因为这样可以避免恶心，头晕和呕吐。
Help, though, is at hand. The selfsame authors of the Michigan study, Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle, who both work for the university’s Transportation Research Institute, have just been awarded a patent for a device that could act as a countermeasure against the malady.
不过补救办法近在咫尺，上述研究的作者、供职于密歇根大学交通研究所的迈克尔`西瓦克（Michael Sivak）和布兰登`索特尔 （Brandon Schoettle），发明的一种设备刚刚获得了专利，可能成为晕车的解药。
Motion sickness is caused by a conflict between signals arriving in the brain from the inner ear (which forms the base of the vestibular system, the sensory apparatus that deals with movement and balance, and which detects motion mechanically), and from the eyes, which detect motion optically. If someone is looking at a stationary object within a vehicle, such as a magazine, his eyes will inform his brain that what he is viewing is not moving. His inner ears, however, will contradict this by sensing the motion of the vehicle. The resulting confusion, at least according to one theory, leads his brain to conclude that he is hallucinating because he has ingested poison. Hence the need to throw up, to rid the stomach of any toxins.
晕动病是大脑中来自内耳和眼睛的信号产生冲突所致。内耳是前庭系统这一应对运动和平衡的感觉器官的所在，通过机械的方式感知运动；眼睛则是通过视觉感知运动。如果一个人在车内注视一件静止的物品，比如一本杂志，他的眼睛就会传达给大脑：他正在看的这个物件没有移动。然而他的内耳却感觉到了汽车的运动，这就与眼睛传达的信息产生了冲突，从而造成混乱。起码有一种理论认为，这种混乱会让大脑断定这个人是因为服用了毒药而产生了幻觉，因此他需要呕吐，好把胃中的毒素排出来。
The idea that Dr Sivak and Mr Schoettle have come up with is to arrange for an array of small lights to appear in the periphery of a potential sufferer’s field of view, meaning that these lights can be seen regardless of what the person in question is looking at. Such lights, most probably small panels of LEDs, could be fitted into a headset, a hat or onto the frame of a pair of glasses. They would be controlled by various motion sensors and blink on and off in a way that is designed to mimic the velocity, rolling, pitching and other movements of a vehicle.
西瓦克和索特尔的想法是在有可能晕车的乘客的视野边缘布置一组小灯，这样无论该乘客在看什么，视域内都会出现这些小灯。这种小灯（很可能会是LED光源阵列）可以安装在头戴设备、帽子或眼镜框上，由多种运动传感器控制，通过闪烁来模拟汽车的速度、摇摆、颠簸以及其他动态。
For the wearer of such kit, the effect would be to provide a visual response that corresponds to the movements the inner ear is detecting. So, for instance, a panel of LEDs positioned at the side of each eye might flash from the front to the back when a vehicle is moving forward but stop when it is braking. Similarly, the lights could blink in sequence towards the left if the car was turning left. The speed of the flashing and the brightness of the lights could be tuned to match the intensity of the movement, such as the vehicle’s rate of acceleration. Dr Sivak and Mr Schoettle think the light arrays could also be fitted to various parts of vehicles’ interiors, such as their door pillars, sidewalls and seats. That way a passenger would be aware of them without having to don special equipment.
乘客佩戴该设备后，将会接收到与其内耳感知到的运动相一致的视觉响应。举例来说，当车辆正常行驶时，两只眼睛旁边的LED光源阵列或许会自前向后发光，在车辆制动时停止闪光。同样，如果车辆左转，小灯可能会依次向左闪烁。或许还可以通过调整闪光的速度及光的亮度，使它们与车辆运动的强度比如加速度相一致。西瓦克和索特尔认为这种光源阵列还可以安装在车内的多个位置上，比如车门立柱、侧壁和座椅，这样乘客不用穿戴特殊装备就能察觉到光亮。
The Michigan team are making a prototype and the university, which hopes to commercialize the idea, is in discussions with carmakers and automotive suppliers. The system could, of course, also be used by passengers who feel sick in cars with a driver at the wheel—a fate to which children seem particularly susceptible, for reasons that remain obscure. It might also help with other forms of motion sickness, such as airsickness or seasickness, although the ways aircraft and boats move are different from the movement of cars. For many, helping people feel well in cars would be enough. And for taxi companies like Uber and Lyft, which are planning to offer autonomous vehicles that can be summoned by an app, the flashing lights could save a fortune in cleaning bills.
这个密歇根大学的团队正在制造该设备的原型。该校希望能将这一创意成果商品化，正与汽车制造商和汽车零部件供应商洽谈。当然，这一系统也可供那些在有人驾驶的汽车上感到不舒服的乘客使用——小孩子似乎尤其容易出现这种情况，但原因尚不清楚。这个设备也许还可以帮助人们克服其他类型的晕动病，比如晕机或晕船，尽管飞机和船的运动方式与汽车的运动有所不同。对很多人来说，能让人们在车上感觉舒服些就足够了。优步（Uber）和来福车（Lyft）正筹划推出可以通过应用来召车的无人驾驶汽车服务，对这些出租车公司来说，这些闪烁的小灯说不定能节省一大笔清洗费用呢。
来源：知新共学外刊群第四期
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