Tonality benchmark analysis for electric vehicle interior noise

The interior noise of a vehicle is a key criterion of the purchase decision process. Especially the audibility of tonal components in the interior of electric vehicles significantly lowers the perceived pleasantness and possibly also the acceptance for alternative drivetrains. Several measures have been established to measure the psychoacoustic sensation of tonality. Various national and international standards, which are based on the principle of the tone-to-noise ratio, are used to identify tonal components and add a penalty value depending on the sound pressure level excess. Due to the stationary approach of these methods, they are not suitable for the evaluation of electric vehicle interior noise where disturbing tonal components especially occur during transient driving conditions. Therefore, the time-varying tonality outputs of several models are qualitatively compared to each other. Furthermore, the results are benchmarked against the results of auditory experiments to determine in which situation which model displays the perception of the human listeners optimally. The outcomes of this benchmark analysis answer the question which tonality model should be chosen to measure the tonality of electric vehicle interior noise as a key influence variable of the pleasantness.