Automotive Engineering - May 2021 - 25

SIMULATION | NVH FEATURE

VI-grade's
Dave Bogema
says multiattribute
simulation is
the future.

headphones or speakers. Calibrated, accurate, independent multiple-degrees-of-freedom vibration is applied at
all driver touchpoints, allowing the driver/engineer to
experience the sound and vibration of a vehicle throughout all the dynamic aspects of driving. Combined with
inputs from ADAS technology and HMI, the latest VIgrade simulator offers " capability to provide a holistic
experience for vehicle development engineers, " Bogema
said. " Getting all those attributes together brings NVH
engineers as close as possible to a real vehicle. "
The VI-grade tool includes an Exterior Sound
Simulator that projects the NVH virtual prototype
into a virtual environment, where engineers can understand how the vehicle will impact and be perceived by those outside the vehicle. EVs will increasingly be equipped with AVAS [acoustic vehicle alerting systems], generating exterior warning sounds.

An alliance for active sound design
In late March 2021, VI-grade and BlackBerry QNX announced
a partnership to enable real-time active sound design for the
entire vehicle soundscape, by integrating VI-grade's NVH
Simulator with QNX's Active Sound Design software.
The partnership allows designers to work interactively
with a complete NVH simulation of the target vehicle and to
experience the sound design in a realistic way, the companies said. The VI-grade NVH Simulator connects QNX ASD to
other sound and real-time data sources in the vehicle, so that
tests and modifications can be performed much earlier in the
design process. This helps reduce the need for physical prototypes and saves development time and costs.
" With this combination of technology, sounds can be
designed and tuned on a computer, in the context of all
other vehicle sounds, over the entire operating envelope of
the vehicle and evaluated with a free-driving, driver-in-theloop simulation, drastically reducing the need for prototype
vehicle testing and tuning, " observed Dave Bogema, VIgrade's director of NVH Solutions.

Lindsay Brooke

AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING

In the new alliance of VI-grade and BlackBerry QNX, VI-grade's NVH Simulator
connects QNX ASD to other sound and real-time data sources in the vehicle,
enabling tests and modifications to be performed earlier in the design process.
" You want to make sure that it doesn't adversely impact the interior of the vehicle. How much of that noise is getting into the cabin-
and is it pleasant or unpleasant? The sound designers craft these
sounds; in the studio they sound amazing. Then you put them on the
vehicle and they sound different. "
According to Bogema, engineering responsibility for AVAS can be
ambiguous, depending on the company. " Who owns it-NVH? Safety?
We've seen a significant uptick in the need to evaluate these sounds
for EVs. And the focus is not on AVAS only. All manner of interior
sound cues are getting added to give the vehicle character, too. "

'Multi-attribute' simulation is next
NVH simulation's increasing capabilities are also in demand with subsystems and component developers, including tire designers, to elevate the performance of their products, according to Bogema. " In
the past many of them [subsystems] have been developed in a vacuum, he said. Now they're looking at those noises in the context of the
rest of the vehicle's noise.
" That's one of the powerful parts of the NVH Simulator technology - it lets you take the AC compressor noise, for example, and put
it into context of what the vehicle occupants are actually hearing, "
he explained.
Technical progress in NVH simulation is moving swiftly. " From the
NVH side our focus is on continuing to make the tools easier to use,
so engineers can be more efficient in making high-fidelity virtual prototypes, and accelerate product development, " Bogema noted. He
said in the next five years there will be greater focus on 'multi-attribute' simulation - sound, vibration, ride, handling, ADAS functionality, all simulated at once. " It's going to come together, " Bogema predicted. For more information: http://www.vi-grade.com/NVH.
May 2021 25

https://www.vi-grade.com/en/products/exterior-sound-simulator/ https://www.vi-grade.com/nvh/

Automotive Engineering - May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive Engineering - May 2021