LEVA-EU member THOR AVAS presented its solution for the audible accompaniment to electric vehicles of the future, at the 2023 edition of Microbility Europe, held in Amsterdam on 8-9 June.
THOR presented its AVAS (Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System) project for micro transport, using electric scooters as an example. At the stand near the main entrance to the exhibition, guests and participants of the show could not only chat with representatives of the company, Alex Nord and Alena Toropchina, but also listen to the sound of the system on an e-scooter, and ride it on a test track.
THOR AVAS is a solution for sound branding and improving the safety of electric vehicles based on the patented principle of sound transmission – both recorded from real engines of cool supercars, and artificially created by THOR AVAS’s team of acoustics and sound engineers. Silent scooters often lead to accidents, and a harmonious sound will help all road users to notice the approach of a high-speed electric scooter, moped or car in advance.
What is the THOR AVAS system?
The main thing is, of course, software. This software allows sounds created by the THOR AVAS sound designers to be played on almost any speaker, reading data from the CAN / UART data bus of the vehicle, and dynamically playing the sound of tracks consisting of several complex layers of audio tracks. Sounds can be recorded (left on the server) or selected through the application.
The patented technology enables not only the reading and expression into sound all the cycles of movement of an electric (initially silent) vehicle, but also makes it possible to notice (hear) it within 5 seconds, regardless of how fast it moves. This is an important aspect that THOR AVAS has achieved through numerous tests in real conditions and in simulated conditions in an anechoic chamber. The system allows you to make the sound quiet and stay within existing noise legislation, while remaining noticeable, and therefore audible to pedestrians and other road users.
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Micromobility Europe is returning to Amsterdam on June 8-9 for a two-day overview of the micro electric transport market and presenting solutions to revolutionize future cities.
THOR AVAS will harmoniously join this electric vibe with the participation of the world’s leading manufacturers, people involved in innovation, and leaders in the field of micromobility. THOR will present its AVAS (Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System) project for LEVs with an electric scooter as a sample.
This sound branding & safety solution for EVs is based on the patented principle of sound transmission – both recorded from real engines of cool supercars, and artificially created by our team of acoustic and sound designers. Silent scooters often lead to accidents, and a harmonious sound will help all road users to notice the approach of a high-speed e-vehicle in advance.
Guests will be able to come to booth #610 near the registration desk and talk with company representatives, listen to the Thor AVAS sound on an e-scooter, and also ride it at the test track.
The capital of narrow streets and canals, bicycles, fields of tulips and cheese factories, creative freedom and opportunities will host more than 100 speakers from all over the world, 500+ brands, and more than 1500 guests under one roof of the large De Kromhouthal exhibition center. An unforgettable atmosphere and constant movement are the core values that attract visitors to Micromobility Europe, the world’s fastest-growing mobile conference, which will be held in the capital of the Netherlands. The participants will enjoy a rich program of speakers and fruitful networking, communication with industry founders, journalists, investors, observers, technologists, politicians, and startups from more than 500 cities.
During the exhibition, all exhibitors and guests will have a unique opportunity to ride the most innovative electric scooters, bicycles, boards and buggies.
Webinars will cover the key issues that are redefining urban mobility: the energy crisis, profitability of scooters, post-coronavirus street space, e-bike boom, last-mile delivery, WFH trends, MaaS systems, supply chain disruptions, 15-minute cities, fast trading, road safety, urban sustainability and more.
The THOR manufacturing company was founded in 2017 and the first successful project was a revolutionary electronic exhaust system for petrol and diesel vehicles. The THOR team of engineers and acoustics is engaged in the development of software and hardware, the design of acoustic elements, and has patents for technologies in the field of recording and reproducing the sounds of real supercar engines. THOR sound engineers have created the largest library of sounds that is transmitted through an electronic module to the speaker, controlled through the application, synchronizing with every cycle of movement of any type of vehicle. Since 2020, the Thor AVAS project has been launched – encompassing the sound accompaniment of electric vehicles, based on the patented principle of reproducing sound samples and operating within the framework of the established UNECE regulation on noise and sound No. 138.
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THOR AVAS, innovators of acoustic alerting systems for EVs, have conducted a study into the European electric transport sector, divided into vehicle types and uses.
The sound of an EV is important to end-users, most notably for safety and personal preference of the noise that they expect their vehicle(s) to make. The survey concentrated on personal use vehicles, omitting commercial and construction vehicles and delivery transportation, instead concentrating on electric cars, scooters, motorcycles and bicycles.
Safety and personal preference were most important for scooter and bicycle users. Car users, meanwhile, were more resolute that noise was for personal value. Motorcyclists and moped users were less enthusiastic about noise additions, the consensus being that they already had the sound of the high-speed wind. This group of EV users was the smallest, however.
35 million personal vehicles are observed in Europe, of which 7 million (21%) are electric. As Europe’s 2035 ban on manufacturing new ICE cars nears, this number is continually increasing, amplified by a rise in gas and oil pricing. The data of Thor Avas’s research relates well to the current market. Comprehensive and thought-provoking details can be located here.
Comments Off on Adaptive acoustic vehicle alerting system (AVAS) – what will help improve acoustic ecology?
LEVA-EU Member Thor Avas shares the latest insight on acoustic technology as increasing numbers of electric vehicles appear on the roads and sidewalks.
Electric transport has a positive effect on the ecology of the city and agglomerations in the broadest sense of the word.
When considering electric vehicles locally, the emission of exhaust gases is reduced, and the acoustic ecology is improved by reducing the noise of vehicles (the hum of internal combustion engines disappears). Micromobility vehicles increase the personal mobility of the population. However, with the spread of electric transport, new difficulties also appear – the number of collisions with pedestrians is increasing. This is not only due to the fact that electric transport can pick up speed faster, but also because it is quiet and has low acoustic visibility at low speeds. Electric vehicles are even classified as silent vehicles, which, according to the national legislation of various countries in North America, Europe, and Asia, must be equipped with a special acoustic device that makes sounds when driving – an AVAS system (acoustic vehicle alerting system).
Requirements for AVAS systems are regulated by national and international regulations FMVSS 141, GB7258, EU 540/2014, UN R138.01. These documents also define the maximum sound level (75 dBA) emitted by the AVAS system.
The visibility of an AVAS-equipped vehicle to a pedestrian will be determined not only by vehicle characteristics, travel speed, road surface types, AVAS sound types, and loudness but also by the acoustic characteristics of the environment. When considering AVAS systems, the visibility of an electric car in a noisy city can be sufficient, but in a park area or countryside, it could be excessive. In this case, the damage to acoustic ecology can be even greater than the noise of an internal combustion engine.
Thor AVAS conducted an experiment that assessed the visibility of vehicles (a car with an internal combustion engine, and an electric car with the AVAS system on and off) on a quiet country road. Visibility was determined using the “fixation time” – the time from the moment a research expert acoustically recorded (heard) that a car was moving in their direction until the moment the car reached them. Passages of an electric vehicle with the AVAS system turned on had two volume options – with the AVAS system operating with a sound level of 75 dBA (maximum allowed) and a sound level of 69 dBA (twice as quiet).
The results showed that operating at acceptable volume levels, the AVAS system in the countryside will provide excessive visibility, that is, pedestrians will hear the approach of an electric car for 25-55 seconds at a speed of 10 km/h and 25-30 seconds at a speed of 20 km/h. These visibility values are several times higher than those for a conventional ICE vehicle. None of the regulatory documents indicates the possibility of an adaptive mode of operation of the AVAS system – such a mode in which the volume of operation is selected based on the acoustic environment. Such a mode of operation could reduce the noise impact on the environment and improve the acoustic environmental friendliness of the AVAS system.
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LEVA-EU member THOR AVAS conducts research to improve road and pedestrian safety. The recently launched survey takes no more than 5 minutes and will aid in deepening the understanding of acoustic safety in relation to LEVs.
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The problems of acoustic ecology in the human environment are studied by many researchers around the world, especially the contributions to city noise made by cars. In recent years, more and more electric vehicles that are much quieter have appeared on city streets. Cars and motorcycles are traditionally powered by the rather noisy operation of an internal combustion engine. Electric transport, on the other hand, runs on electric motors powered by noiseless energy sources (batteries, fuel cells, capacitors, etc.). As a result, the electric car creates noise only due to the contact of the tires with the asphalt and due to the turbulent air currents on the car body. All this makes the movement of electric vehicles less noisy and, at low speeds, almost silent. Therefore, electric vehicles are classified by UN Regulation No. 138 as silent vehicles. With the undoubted benefit of this circumstance for the acoustic ecology of the city, there is also a quiet threat to humans – a pedestrian may simply not hear the approach of an electric car. It is for this reason that the legislation of many countries of the world obliges electric vehicles to be equipped with special sound devices – AVAS systems that increase the acoustic visibility of electric vehicles.
Contribute to the latest Thor AVAS survey on pedestrian safety, here.
In recent years, a wide variety of micromobile vehicles have also begun to appear on the roads in large volumes. And, more importantly, on the sidewalks of cities – scooters, gyro scooters, unicycles, segways and everything that, despite its harmless appearance, can sneak up unnoticed (at a speed of up to 30 km/h) to an unsuspecting pedestrian. While the issue of ensuring the safe movement of microtransport vehicles causes great discussion, no country in the world has resolved this in law.
Thor AVAS, together with the Research Institute of Building Physics, is conducting a large scientific study of the safety of electric transport. Their work studies how different vehicles are acoustically visible (heard) to a pedestrian and how it is possible to increase their visibility without causing ecological damage to the acoustic environment.
In-laboratory work takes place in a unique acoustic measuring complex – a large acoustic anechoic chamber. This is a room in which there is absolutely no echo due to the walls and ceiling being covered in a layer of a special sound-absorbing structure more than 1 meter thick.
The room used by Thor AVAS is the largest anechoic chamber in Europe and one of the largest chambers in the world – the floor area exceeds 120 square meters. It is also very quiet in this chamber – so quiet that it is a unique auditory experience, with the background noise level in the chamber only reaching 18 dBA.
During testing, many loudspeakers are placed in a circle around the cell. Together they make up the radiating part of the laboratory setup. Six speakers imitate the noise of the environment, reproducing, for example, the sounds of a city courtyard or a city park, in 5.1 stereo, comparable to a movie theater. Another three-way speaker system simulates the noise of an approaching electric vehicle’s tires.
The approach of a car is simulated at a speed range between 10 and 50 km/h. Imitation occurs by increasing tire volume according to auditory laws. When the distance between the car and the pedestrian decreases, the sound pressure level increases by 6 dB.
Finally, consider the last loudspeaker is the AVAS system, the principle which is the subject of the study. By playing different sounds through the AVAS system, traffic safety conditions can be significantly improved.
The essence of the experiment is to determine how long it takes a pedestrian to hear a car approaching them. Participants of the experiment are given registration panels and the experiment begins. At first, participants in the experiment hear only the sounds of the environment, the park or the yard, because the simulated car is still “far away”. At the moment when participants hear the approaching car, they press the registration button on their remotes. By this pressing, it can be determine how long it took for the pedestrian to register the approaching car, i.e. how much time the pedestrian has to react to the approach and decide on further actions. For example, an electric car without an AVAS system is heard when impact time is between 3-5 seconds, depending on the vehicle’s speed. In such a short time, the pedestrian will not have time to react to the approach of the vehicle and a collision may occur.
When driving an electric vehicle with the AVAS system turned on, it is possible to significantly increase the time for acoustic detection of an approaching car by a pedestrian. The most effective method is to turn the system up to high volume. Very loud and unpleasant sounds can be played through the AVAS system (or alternatively, turn on loud music) and the residents of the next few blocks will know in advance about the approach of the car, which, of course, will have nothing to do with traffic safety. The correct sound of AVAS should ensure the safe movement of an electric vehicle and sound at such a volume that it will not exceed the established rules and sanitary standards for a residential area. However, sounds of the same loudness can have varying visibility. By changing the timbre of the sound, its frequency range, and introducing volume modulations and discrete components at certain frequencies, it is possible to significantly increase a vehicle’s visibility without increasing the volume.
The Thor AVAS study aims to find the best ways to control the visibility of an electric vehicle using the AVAS system. The goal is to create such sounds for the AVAS system which, on the one hand, will not be unpleasant, excessively loud, and attract unnecessary attention, and, on the other hand, provide optimal and speed-independent visibility.
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On December 20, the Business Space Center in Moscow hosted a key technological business event to present innovations in the field of transport. Within the framework of this forum, the THOR company (Car Systems LLC) presented its project – THOR AVAS system that improves the safety of micro-electric transport.
The Ninebot KickScooter Max G30 electric scooter and the Ninebot eScooter E125 moped were equipped with THOR AVAS, a warning acoustic safety system with the synthesized intelligent sound that dynamically changes with the movement of the vehicle. The system reads data from the vehicle and synchronizes with pressing the throttle and brake levers, allowing you to play through the built-in or installed speaker – an audio track developed in the THOR sound laboratory.
The sound of THOR AVAS can be basic – it can be the tracks specially designed for AVAS systems according to UN Regulation No. 138, as well as the sounds of classic V-twin engines, realistic powerful tuned engines, as well as sci-fi sounds of spaceships familiar to us from futuristic movies and games.
The system can be built into a ready-made solution or be an addition to an existing product. The system can be controlled both through the standard control levers of the device, and through white label application for iOS or Android.
THOR AVAS is designed to improve the safety of electric vehicles and make the streets of the future sound beautiful and sound ecologically acceptable.
The head of the AVAS division of the THOR company, Timofey Maksimenko, introduced and demonstrated the sound of the system to all visitors at the company’s stand.
