How Advances in On-Road NVH Simulator Technology Have Enabled Firm Targets for Delivery at the Concept Phase

One of the great challenges of the NVH development process is to ensure that customers and stakeholders in the vehicle team are involved in sound quality decision making throughout a new vehicle programme. Recent developments of interactive NVH simulators have enabled a cost-effective customer-focused method for capturing the opinions and decision making processes of people who are not NVH experts.

This paper describes the latest enhancement to the NVH Simulator approach which allows the sounds of virtual vehicles to be evaluated whilst driving on-road. The sounds are created and presented to the driver in such a way that they appear totally natural and the assessor is not aware that they are synthesized. Since the subjective evaluations are performed on normal roads, key decision makers can understand, sign up with confidence to, and appreciate the value of the proposed sounds.

The main emphasis of this paper is a recent case study in which the “On-Road” and “Desktop” simulators were used at the concept stage to deliver an exciting sound to enhance and compliment a new B-segment vehicle. The paper explains how the tools were used to:

• Set vehicle level sound quality targets to enhance the appeal of the vehicle, including customer surveys and the use of the On-Road Simulator for final sign off at target confirmation drive events.
• Understand the path and source contributions of a donor vehicle and key competitor.
• Create and demonstrate a strategy for practical realisation of the vehicle level target.

The paper concludes with a discussion of the benefits of the approach and summarizes the next steps in the development of the technology and process.