Simulator Sickness Depends on Frequency of the Simulator Motion Mismatch: An Observation

Abstract

In this study we describe a new approach to relate simulator sickness ratings with the main frequency component of the simulator motion mismatch, that is, the computed difference between the time histories of simulator motion and vehicle motion, respectively. During two driving simulator experiments in the TNO moving-base driving simulator—that were performed for other reasons than the purpose of this study—we collected simulator sickness questionnaires from in total 58 subjects. The main frequency component was computed by means of the power spectrum density of the computed mismatch signal. We hypothesized that simulator sickness incidence depends on this frequency component, in a similar way as the incidence of “real” motion sickness, such as sea sickness, depends on motion frequency. The results show that the simulator sickness ratings differed between both driving simulator experiments. The experiment with its main frequency component of the mismatch signal of 0.08 Hz had significantly higher simulator sickness incidence than the experiment with its main frequency at 0.46 Hz. Since the experimental design differed between both experiments, we cannot exclusively attribute the difference in sickness ratings to the frequency component, but the observation does suggest that quantitative analysis of the mismatch between the motion profiles of the simulator and the vehicle may greatly improve our understanding of the causal mechanism of simulator sickness.