Audi presents VR software to help combat nausea while driving

Developers from Ingolstadt have figured out how to successfully combat the nausea that afflicts many car occupants by wearing VR glasses on their heads in the back seat. The start-up Holoride, a spin-off of Audi, has managed to combine virtual content with sensor and navigation data already collected by the car and adapt the virtual content to it.

Audi division develops new software for virtual reality driving

The idea behind it: Nausea while driving - like seasickness on ships - occurs when the movements acting on the body do not correspond with what one sees. In the car, therefore, it is mainly in the back seats, where the headrest and tinted windows make it difficult to see outside. It also often happens when you are watching a video on your tablet or when children are playing around on their mobile phones.

This is exactly where Holoride comes in: The company's software links the car's movements with the virtual images in the glasses. So far, this has been implemented in two harmless computer games. If the driver of the car steers to the right, the virtual spaceship also makes a right turn. If the driver stops at a traffic light, the spaceship also stops. The landscape always adapts to the course of the road. You can't see the road, but its contour is imprinted in the virtual landscape.

Audi with new Holoride software - Possibly on the accessory lists from 2022 onwards

What has so far been limited to computer games can in future be extended to completely different areas. In the corresponding virtual environment, one could work on e-mails, write, read or even watch films - without getting sick. Even historical city tours via VR glasses in the car will become possible. This year, visitors to the Salzburg Festival were able to take a virtual journey through time to musical milestones in the history of the festival with Audi and Holoride. Historical scenes were played during the tour.

Before the IAA, Audi organised test drives with the Holoride system in Ingolstadt. Conclusion of the driver who chauffeured the test subjects through the city: "Even passengers who easily get sick in the car had no problems this time."

The system is limited to passengers for the time being. In the long term, it could also be used for office work from the driver's seat in autonomously driving cars. But that is pie in the sky. The Holoride offering is not. It should be on the Ingolstadt carmaker's accessory lists in 2022.