Engine Sound Design by Kansei Engineering

Abstract

One of the important Kansei values of automobiles is engine sound. Engine sound determines the character of a car and is an important element for branding. However, since popular cars sold around the world have diverse preferences for customers in each region, they will inevitably be developed to reflect the demand for improvement of mass production cars while compare with the level of competing cars. It is same for engine sounds, and when providing engine sounds with new Kansei values, a different approach is required. Therefore, in this research, we used Kansei engineering, devised a new process to realize engine sound of a new concept, and verified its usefulness. Specifically, we introduce an example of engine sound design based on the concept of "Woody sound".