A prospect of the future of automotive sound quality development

Abstract

In the development of vehicle sound design, sound quality is getting more important as opposed to the traditional sound level design. To get the proper sound quality with the vehicle image, the sound targets of the vehicle is needed to be defined appropriately in the vehicle level, system levels, etc., which become the core part in the vehicle design procedure. In sound design of the electrified vehicles including fuel cell vehicle, hybrid vehicle, extended range EV, and pure EV, artificial sound design both for vehicle interior and exterior, gain popularities for pedestrian protections as well as the driver satisfactions. As for the sound characteristics of the future vehicles, new noise sources are expected to be more concerns than powertrain noise sources with reduced noise level. Thus, in design of future vehicles, the efforts of the vehicle sound development should shift from the traditional sound level reduction to sound quality design and sound synthesis dealing with new noise sources.