Acoustic Warning System for Armored Vehicle Hazard Anticipation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In acoustically insulated armored vehicles, natural noises indicating potential hazards such as ground contact or obstacle collisions are often not perceived by the crew until damage occurs, making it difficult for drivers to react in time due to the lack of reliable and interpretable acoustic warnings.
Innovation Solution
An acoustic/tactile vehicle occupant information system that uses sensors to simulate natural noises before an event occurs, allowing the driver to anticipate and prevent hazards, featuring a control device connected to acoustic noise simulators and sensors to generate specific sounds indicating impending events, with tactile support for enhanced alertness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If acoustic insulation is increased to protect vehicle occupants from external noise, then comfort and protection are improved, but the ability to perceive natural hazard warnings deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces acoustic sensors and a warning system as intermediaries between the external environment and the vehicle occupants. The sensors detect natural hazard noises (ground contact, obstacles) and the system reproduces these sounds through loudspeakers, mediating the information flow without compromising the acoustic insulation's protective function.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates acoustic copies of natural hazard warnings by capturing real external noises with sensors and reproducing them through the vehicle's loudspeaker system. This allows occupants to perceive hazard information without removing acoustic insulation, as the copied sounds provide the same warning function.
2Loss of information
If artificial acoustic warning signals are used to indicate hazards, then hazard detection capability is improved, but the ease of interpretation and response time deteriorates due to requiring driver interpretation
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using artificial coded signals that require interpretation, the system copies the actual natural hazard noises (scratching sounds from ground contact, collision sounds from obstacles). These copied sounds are immediately recognizable to occupants as real hazard warnings, eliminating interpretation time and enabling instant response.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments different hazard types by capturing and reproducing their distinct acoustic characteristics. Ground contact produces scratching sounds, obstacles produce collision sounds, allowing occupants to immediately identify the specific hazard type without needing to decode artificial signals.
3Loss of information
If multiple warning signals are used to indicate different hazard levels, then information completeness is improved, but the complexity of the system and difficulty of interpretation increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the natural acoustic characteristics of different hazards as the warning signals themselves. Ground contact produces scratching sounds, obstacles produce collision sounds - each hazard type is represented by its own natural sound copy. This eliminates the need for complex coded signal systems while maintaining complete hazard information.
Data Source
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AI summary
In order to ensure that the crew of a vehicle (1), in particular an armored vehicle, is warned of an impending event by an acoustic vehicle occupant information system (12), and that the crew can reliably associate the acoustic warning signals with the impending events even in stressful situations, the invention proposes that data recorded by sensors (2-11) be acoustically reported to the driver and/or commander of the corresponding vehicle (1) by simulating the corresponding natural sound before the event actually occurs.