The vehicle of the future must be able to hear. The sounds that surround our vehicles on the road provide important information about the current traffic situation, the weather and road conditions as well as other road users. The acoustics inside the vehicles are constantly being optimized to increase the driver's comfort, but this means that important external sounds are perceived less clearly. Perceiving or not perceiving these sounds can have a significant impact on the driving style and thus become a safety risk.

The solution to this problem is the Sonic Intelligence technology, a technical representation of human hearing. One application example is the siren of an emergency vehicle, to which the driver has to react according to the situation. The listening vehicle can support the driver in such a situation with additional information and recommendations for action. In addition, the progressive automation of vehicles makes it essential to record all acoustic signals. From SAE Level 3, the driver delegates the decisive driving tasks to the vehicle in their entirety and only has to intervene when the system requests it. For this reason, automated or autonomous vehicles must be able to detect warning signals and react to them.

In an interdisciplinary team consisting of experts in acoustics, electrics/electronics and automated driving, fka has implemented a system that allows a test vehicle to detect noises from road traffic and react to them appropriately. The acoustic sensor concept was chosen taking into account a comprehensive understanding of the target and disturbance variables. Sonic Intelligence can withstand the stresses and strains of real vehicle operation and meet the requirements of the various functions. These challenges were solved by the know-how in all domains of the vehicle and based on already gained knowledge in this field.

fka's interdisciplinary team and its scientific cooperation partner, the Institute for Automotive Engineering (ika) at RWTH Aachen University, are thus directly involved in the implementation of the human sense of hearing in vehicles: From signal acquisition, transmission and processing to reaction. Various holistic approaches have already been implemented and successfully tested as a prototype in a vehicle on the ika test track. New ideas, technologies and requirements are efficiently evaluated and then implemented according to automotive grade.

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