Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering, Fall 2020 Vol. 5 No. 2 Fall 2020 | Page 23

Michael Roan
mechanical engineering professor Michael Roan of the Acoustics , Signal Processing , and Immersive Reality ( ASPIRe ) Lab . He is joined by Luke Neurauter of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and General Motors Engineer Doug Moore .
costs while increasing test repeatability and accuracy . Additionally , the virtual acoustic environment will provide car makers with the ability to test detectability performance of their EV sounds in a large number of background noise environments .
Roan has worked with General Motors on two previous projects to test the use of various sounds for both legally blind and sighted pedestrians . These projects illuminated the need for additional work in two main areas : First , systems are needed that uniformly broadcast sounds around the front of the vehicle , and second , better understanding is needed to develop warning sounds that are highly detectable , but contribute little to noise pollution .
The group will be testing in the a 3D virtual acoustic environment of Roan ’ s ASPIRe lab . This will enable the use of a 58.2 high density loudspeaker array and a high-resolution wavefield synthesis system , where the researchers will create an immersive virtual sound environment of street noises and alert sounds . Conducting the tests in this simulated environment will greatly reduce