CarVR Enables a Completely New Passenger Experience

Being a passenger in a vehicle is normally a pretty dull experience. Though you might check your phone or stare out the window, for most people there are other things that they’d rather do. Using a VR headset is typically out of the question because of the potential for motion sickness, since the movement of the car is incongruous with what one sees on the screen.

Researchers at Ulm University in Germany, however, have come up with a new VR concepts that uses vehicular motion to enhance one’s experience, rather than take away from it.

Using data from a vehicle-mounted inertial measurement unit (IMU) and data from the OBD-II port, this system allows participants to experience a rail shooter-style game in which the car’s actual movement corresponds to the virtual environment on display.

Results look promising, perhaps opening up a whole new world for future road trips! You can read more about this project in the team’s published paper here.