Article
Auralization of Electric Vehicles in Urban Environments (en)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Electric and hybrid vehicles become increasingly popular both in urban and rural environments. Since those are significantly quieter at low speeds than vehicles with internal combustion engines, current EU regulations demand that all newly sold models have to be equipped with an acoustic vehicle alerting system (AVAS), radiating warning sounds which shall indicate the vehicle behaviour. A challenge designing these sounds is to achieve a sufficient warning capability for vulnerable road users and, at the same time, limit traffic noise annoyance. While various research has been conducted regarding detectability and annoyance of individually approaching electric cars, more complex scenarios such as busy parking lots where multiple spatially distributed vehicles simultaneously radiate distinct warning sounds have barely been investigated. Evaluating the perception of such acoustic environments requires a suitable auralization method. This paper presents a modular auralization approach combining three-dimensional directivity measurements of AVAS radiation from electric vehicles, recordings of isolated AVAS signals from different vehicle types as well as a simplified tyre-road noise model resulting in a modular source description which allows a dynamic headphone- or loudspeaker-based reproduction.