Motion sickness onboard ships: subjective vertical theory and its application to full-scale trials

This article presents a new approach for the prediction of motion sickness on ships, with a focus on high-speed craft. The methodology presented is based on a variant of the sensory conflict hypothesis and the human vestibular system. The proposed model was developed using control theory and is capable of taking account of all six degrees of freedom vessel motion for the prediction of motion sickness. Furthermore, full-scale trials were carried out onboard three different high-speed craft to measure the ship motions and consequently to analyse their effects on passengers in terms of motion sickness. Through the accumulated results, the developed model was validated and was compared with existing methods/criteria for the prediction of the incidence of motion sickness.