Students in automotive engineering learning about how to control and design the sounds in cars have a new tool at their disposal unlike any other on the continent.~

“We’re the only school in North America to have one of these,” mechanical, automotive and materials engineering assistant professor Colin Novak said of the new noise, vibration, and harshness virtual simulator recently donated to his lab.

Manufactured by the Denmark-based firm Brüel &Kjær, the PULSE NVH simulator accurately recreates the noise and vibration of a car in an interactive environment. The desktop version of the system in Novak’s lab consists of three wide-screen monitors, a steering wheel and floor-mounted foot pedals.

Much like a video game, drivers can don a pair of headphones and navigate their way through a variety of lifelike courses, select the type of car they’re driving and then isolate noises from as many as 100 independent sources.

Learning to use the simulator and how it can be used to reduce noise will give students an edge over other graduates seeking to become the automotive acoustics engineers of tomorrow and will allow researchers to work with manufacturers and suppliers on designing products for quieter cars.

“Customers are a lot more in tune with any noise they hear and they really relate that to the quality of the car,” said Novak. “Now we can design the entire noise package for a car that doesn’t even exist yet. We can model the car before they even build it.”

B&K believes strongly in the quality of the programming here, said Gary Newton, the firm’s regional sales engineer for Michigan.

“We really view the University of Windsor as having the key automotive program in Canada,” he said. “If you’re going to get into the automotive market in Canada, you have to go through Windsor and that’s a tribute to the work being done by people like Colin Novak and (AUTO21 CEO) Peter Frise.”

The system is currently a desktop application, but Novak hopes to install it in an actual vehicle to be housed in the new $112 million Centre for Engineering Innovation when some of the labs open next year.

“Rather than just see and hear, we’ll be able to feel the actual movement in the car,” he said.

A portion of the equipment's costs were covered by the Strategic Skills Investment fund from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

Engineering professor Colin Novak sits behind the wheel of the Brüel &Kjær PULSE NVH desktop simulator, which he will demonstrate to members of the media on Monday

News story courtesy of UWin Daily News