Optimization of the sound of electric vehicles according to unpleasantness and detectability

Abstract

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are very quite at low speed, which can be hazardous for pedestrians. It is necessary to add warning sounds but this can represent an annoyance if they are poorly designed. On the other hand, they can be not enough detectable because of the masking effect due to the background noise. In this paper, we propose a method for the design of EV sounds that takes into account in the same time detectability and unpleasantness. It is based on user tests and implements Interactive Genetic Algorithms (IGA) for the optimization of the sounds. Synthesized EV sounds, based on additive synthesis and filtering, are proposed to a set of participants during a hearing test. An experimental protocol is proposed for the assessment of the detectability and the unpleasantness of the EV sounds. After the convergence of the method, sounds obtained with the IGA are compared to different sound design proposals. Results show that the quality of the sounds designed by the IGA method is significantly higher than the design proposals, validating the relevance of the approach.