ASFINAG Challenge: AV2X

Traffic noise on motorways and expressways is caused by different road users such as buses, trucks, motorcycles or passenger cars. A reduction in noise exposure must take different aspects into account, such as the fact that a truck produces around 10 times as much “noise” as a passenger car.

When applying an actively operated noise protection measure, it makes sense to network the noise source—i.e. the respective vehicle—with the corresponding infrastructure (V2X) in order to have specific, local real-time data on the type and characteristics of the traffic available in addition to the information captured directly by sensors. Since vehicle connectivity is an important business field for vehicle manufacturers for several reasons such as fleet management, intelligent navigation or highly automated driving, an exchange with the vehicle manufacturers must take place here. Already today, anonymized real-time traffic data is provided to increase road safety. In the context of active noise reduction, it must be evaluated which basic data could be provided by the vehicle, which pre-processing of this basic data with regard to an acoustic signature would be possible within the vehicle, and which technologies or network structures (multi-access edge computing, 5G, etc.) could be used to transmit the data to the noise protection device with the lowest possible latency.

In the future, corresponding legal requirements could standardize this “acoustic signature” for different vehicle classes (passenger cars, trucks, buses, etc.) and make it part of the general type approval in the context of motorway and expressway use. Another advantage results from the event-driven activation of the active noise protection system, which allows the most suitable ANC technology (actuators, transducers, etc.) to be used depending on the application and environmental conditions. Energy-optimized ANC software can also be deployed effectively through this event-based approach. AUDIO MOBIL contributes over 30 years of expertise in vehicle acoustics, connectivity and the coordination of industrial and political interests.