Terrifying Driving Simulator Lets a Player Feel a Car’s Motions by Short-Circuiting Their Sense of Balance

Gizmodo ^ | Andrew Liszewksi

[BenLurkin]

Your typical driving simulator usually features a racing-style seat with a steering wheel, pedals, shifters, and a bunch of giant screens filling a driver’s view, all perched atop a platform connected to pneumatic pistons that move the cockpit around in 3D space to more or less match the motion’s of an on-screen vehicle. It can add a convincing level of realism to a racing game or simulator as the player feels the simulated forces of being in a real car, but all that hardware means these rigs are often priced well north of $50,000. But what if the human body could be convinced to recreate all those moves on its own without the pricy hardware?

It turns out a process called galvanic vestibular stimulation—also known as GVS—can be used to alter a human’s sense of balance by electrically stimulating a nerve in the ear using electrodes. Researchers haven’t quite figured out the best uses of the technology—medical, military, and entertainment companies are all investigating it—but when used properly it can convince a person that they need to move their bodies to the left or right to maintain balance, which the body will automatically do all on its own, even if they’re standing perfectly still. As a result there’s a peculiar side effect of GVS: the technology can be used to partially control a human’s movements as if they were being operated remotely.

It’s no where near the same driving experience as you’d get in a simulator, the hacked together alternative doesn’t really translate forward and back motions to the player when a vehicle is accelerating or braking in the game, but the lateral side to side motions, when a vehicle is tearing around a corner at high speeds, are very much felt, and maybe even too much so.

[PeterPrinciple]

Researchers haven’t quite figured out the best uses of the technology—medical, military, and entertainment companies are all investigating it—but when used properly it can convince a person that they need to move their bodies to the left or right to maintain balance,

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Might be useful in teaching the hokey pokey?

[SkyDancer]

Like a full motion simulator for training pilots.

[Secret Agent Man]

it will be used to cause people to have accidents

perfect assassination weapon

affect their inner ear balance, target falls into oncoming traffic

[Ken Regis]

Place Mark

[MercyFlush]

Wearing a PowerBalance bracelet will defeat the effects of this device.

[Ozark Tom]

Induced motion sickness for interrogation?

[T.B. Yoits]

Just don’t drop your GVS in your lap, especially while driving.

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Wouldn't work on me!

I lost my inner-ear functionality in May of '92. Cause unknown.

The E-N-T doctor sent me to a lab to administer what they call "the Caloric Test". My rank? "Zero percent Vestibular Function".

I only miss it in certain situations. Without consciously doing so, I *mostly* make up for its loss - just like everyone else in the same boat as me - by using the nerves in my feet and ankles, and my being able to see the horizon or the floor or any other surface perpendicular to the pull of gravity, to achieve a semblance of balance that appears normal to others.

[Salamander]

I have a terrible time with balance and sometimes vertigo.

Will this *actually* help?

Sea Bands and Dramamine don’t do much.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Conventional hydraulic simulators are good at creating a sense of acceleration and deceleration to 1 G by tilting the closed cockpit fore and aft, but cannot do lateral acceleration well. A hybrid that uses this to control lateral acceleration combined with a conventional simulator to do acceleration and braking would be the answer.

[MercyFlush]

I’m just saying that a non solution is the best way to address a non problem.