Preventing Simulator Sickness of Onboard Flight Simulators

Simulator sickness prevents the use of simulators immediately prior to a mission. The main cause for simulator sickness appears to be a mismatch between ocular cues and vestibular cues. This is especially apparent in simulators that do not utilize a motion base, and logistically it is largely not feasible to maintain a simulator with a motion base in a deployed setting, compounding the problem. In a natural setting, our bodies sense motion through the visual, proprioceptive (‘seat of the pants’) and vestibular systems. Realizing that the large-scale proprioceptive inputs require considerable logistics that are extremely difficult in a deployed setting, our team of engineers and clinicians has been developing a vestibular display that, combined with visual stimulation, accounts for most of the sensation of motion present in a real setting. Our oculo-vestibular recoupled flight simulator will therefore mitigate or eliminate simulator sickness. We have found in our studies to date that there is a variability in the vestibular sensitivity among individuals. Our device and methods lead to a direct assessment of this phenomenon, and we will use this to study the strength of the link to motion sickness susceptibility. This could result in a simple, safe method to determine an appropriate individualized training regimen.