Business Plan Report

AUTO-ACOUSTIC INC.

Dec. 21, 2019

Executive Summary
(Please prepare an one-paragraph (3 to 5 lines) executive summary for you assigned part)
1. Business Blueprint (Bo)
2. Technology Application (Zhiheng)
3. Budget Plan (Erica)
4. Potential Challenge (Erica)
5. Ethics and Fairness (Longyin)

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 1. Business Blueprint (Bo)

2. Technology Application (Zhiheng)

(1) Introduction of NVH
Noise, vibration and harness (NVH) is used to study noise and vibration vehicle characteristics.
Every type of vehicle has its unique vibration/noise performance. NVH correlates with vehicle
failure modes and is used as a detection method in Failure mode and effects analysis (DFMEA).
DFMEA is the official document regulated by America Society of Mechanical Engineer (ASME)
and the US government. DFMEA specifies the tools or methods that could be used to detect
vehicle failures. Exposed components apparent surface color change, sudden increase of gear
friction and obvious noise/vibration are the easiest detection methods allowed by ASME. Other
failure detection methods, including system power on power off lab testing and OBD type II
sensor reading data, are more complicated and must include scientific grade instruments. As a
result, easy and permitted detection methods, such as NVH, become extremely valuable in the
automotive business.
(2) NVH Data Benefits
Unlike OBD type II data, which must be analyzed after data collection, NVH noise can provide
instant feedback to testing engineers and drivers. NVH noise data has another advantage over
the other types of vehicle data. Most the time, components will have to be fixed with strain
gages for deflection and fatigue measurement, requiring system tearing down. NVH data,
transmitted by air, does not require any system disassembly during operation. In summary,
NVH failure detection method is the main focus of today’s automobile industry because the
data is easy to acquire and can provide instant feedback.
For certain types of vehicle failures, including water intrusion, corrosion, component fracture
and excessive assembly axial lash, NVH data exhibits a repeatable data pattern. Its signal curve
amplitude, frequency and phase show very good repeatability under multi order harmonic
frequency analysis. Other types of data, such as circuit capacitor electronic pulse, shows little or
no repeatable data pattern. As a result, studying NVH data pattern is a feasible way for quick
and easy vehicle root cause analysis.
NVH data is allowed to be the detection method in severity 9 and severity 10 in the DFMEA, so
a successful detection of NVH abnormality can be used to prevent fatal vehicle failures. If NVH
warning can be integrated to vehicle alarming system, it can significantly reduce crash rate and
save millions of people’s lives.
(3) Issues with NVH Detection
Although experienced testing engineers are trained to learn different types of noise and can
distinguish noise with a high confidence. Engineer’s comments can merely be used as evidence
for final conclusion. Multiple components failure will cause NVH complications and impossible
for even experienced NVH engineer to root cause. If a new type of NVH noise appears, detailed

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NVH data have to be analyzed to confirm the assumptions. Also, it is impossible to carry an NVH
engineer in your car to tell you what problems a vehicle has.
Traditionally, NVH data is collected and processed by NVH department. It is easy to correlates
failure with noise when there is only one type of failure since every component or defection has
its own natural frequency. When multiple components fail at the same time, it is difficult to
locate the true root cause of the problem. Swap test and Fast X projects are required to
eliminate each potential root cause, costing tremendous amount of lab resource and man
power.
(4) AI Project Scope

Use artificial intelligence (AI) deep learning to link between NVH data and vehicle transmission
gear box failure modes. Other type of vehicle NVH data, such as suspension noise data and
steering noise data, will not be discussed on this article. First, our company will find 100
different types of NVH abnormality. Collect enough acoustic signals from various spots of gear
box. Study the gear box to find the root cause of abnormal noise. Feed all the data to DNN AI
study so that the AI system can predict failures when the AI model receives new acoustic
signals.
(5) Detailed Data Collection Process

1) Locate the vehicle with bad acoustic performance

2) Objectively verify that the noise/vibration is repeatable
3) Prepare research grade micro phone and put stick them to suspected areas of the gear box
4) Record sound maps of the noise in each area
5) Tear down the gear box and send it to running noise bench for testing
6) Send out an input signal to gear box and generate noise frequency vs magnitude plot
7) Use harmonic frequency calculation method to locate identify potential study components
8) Use swap test to eliminates other assumptions
9) Confirm the root cause by reassemble the WOW component into well functioned gear box
which has all BOB components
10) Generate enough data set for deep learning analysis
(6) Input Data Processing

Figure 1 shows the data collected by microphone.

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 Figure 1. Acoustic data from microphone
The data from microphone contains a lot of noise, so the acoustic data need to be transformed
into wave data so that data characteristics can be summarized. The transformed data is shows
in figure 2. Data characteristics, such as amplitude, frequency and amplitude can be easily
summarized.

Figure2. Transformed wave data

Traditionally, NVH engineers have to plot the wave data through mathematical method. With
the new neural machine translation (NMT) method. Acoustic data can directly be translated to
the main characteristics of wave signal according to figure 3.

Figure 3. Neural machine translation method

Within the NMT model, the input is the vehicle acoustic data from vehicle. The output is the
characteristic of the acoustic wave signal, such as wave amplitude, frequency and phase. The

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NMT model compile the output through encoding process so that the output is 2 dimensional
vector numpy array according to Figure 4.

Figure 4. NMT model output data matrix

The first row of the vector stores acoustic time data, the second row records the amplitude
data, and the third row records the acoustic occurrence data. Figure 4 shows the encoding of
the acoustic data in one place.
(7) Output Data Processing
When testing engineers identifies the root cause inside the gear box through swap test analysis,
gear box vibration pattern should be recorded. The most common way of characterizing the
failure is through recording gear box vibration performance while vehicle operation. To
facilitate the data recording process, gear boxes are installed on a running noise measurement
bench. Send digital or analog signals to gear boxes through CAM portal to simulate vehicle
running condition and record the vibration performance through strain gages. The strain gages
must be installed on each individual component, so in reality, this failure detection method can
only be conducted in a lab environment. The measurement result is shown in figure 5.

Figure 5. Vibration measurement result

Figure 5 shows the relation between the frequency and amplitude of the gear box under certain
vehicle signal. Testing engineers pre-assign upper control limit to the graph so that a out of spec
signal can be visually detected. A out of spec vibration signal in certain regions represent
certain vehicle failures. For example, figure 5 shows the vibration is out of spec in region 24 to
27 Hertz, so the 3rd shifting gear needle bearing is damaged. The vibration signal data can be

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encoded to a 2D vector numpy array matrix as shown in figure 6. The vector data structure is
the same as that of input data.

Figure 6. Output encoding data matrix

(8) Build AI Model
It is impossible to install strain gages to each component of the gear boxes to detect vibration
abnormality, so the best way is to find the correlation between the output data (acoustic data)
and the input data (component data). Using the data collection method and root cause analysis
method described above, we will build the correction between noise and vibration signal based
on 100 different types of failures. Each DNN study data structure is shown in figure 7.

Figure 7. DNN study data

Each DNN study data includes a set of input variables. Each input variable is a 2D numpy vector
characterized by acoustic data in one area of the gear box. Each output is the vibration
performance of a gear box, which is fixed to a certain type of component failure. The 100 data
points are divided into training and validation groups. Training data accounts for 80% of the
data points. The DNN will process the data through figure 8.

Figure 8. DNN
An accuracy of 95% need to be achieved, otherwise, more data needs to be collected to feed
into the DNN model. Or need to change the amount of hidden layers and number of neurons on
each of the layers. Once the DNN model is created with a high accuracy. The model can be used
to predict vehicle failures with the 6 input variables.
(9) AI Model Application

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To double verify the accuracy of the DNN model, locate a vehicle with an unknown failure. Stick
6 microphones on the gear box at the same locations as described above. Use DNN model to
predict the failure type, and verify the failure type through swap test.

3. Budget Plan (Erica)

4. Potential Challenge (Erica)

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 5. Ethics and Fairness (Longyin)
（1）Privacy
1）Data-collection
It is necessary to inform the driver and acquire the consent before installing microphones in the
vehicle. And only collect data when necessary, mostly when the suspicious auto parts are
working. Also, the engineers should be reminded to remove excess information in the audio
collected, such as the voice of human activities.
2）Data-Usage
The data should only serve the NVH study and not be used for any other purposes. In addition,
releasing the exact amount of data as necessary.
3）Responsibility of Auto-Acoustic
The company should guide the flow of data well, from collection to processing, from storage to
eliminating. Meanwhile we should be aware the difficulty to anonymize data, extra attention
must be paid to protect end-users’ privacy.
（2）Deep Learning Model Debiasing
As is known, deep learning can easily reinforces biases, so we need to focus on concepts to
enhance the fairness, accountability and transparency. 1
1)Responsibility
Be aware of external negative reviews and feedbacks from both auto industry and outsiders
and designate a public relations expert for the timely response and remedy of such issues.
2) Explainability
Ensure the model as well as the input and output data can be explained to drivers, automaker,
insurance companies and other stakeholders in non-technical terms.
3)Accuracy
Identify, log, and articulate sources of error and uncertainty so they could be avoided or
mitigated next time.
4)Auditability
Enable criticism, monitoring, checking, even information technology audit.
5)Fairness
Avoid creating discriminatory or unjust impacts when comparing across different drivers and
auto brands.
（3）Misjudgment, Unemployment and Legal Issues
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https://www.fatml.org

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1)Type I Error, i.e. overstatement of defects. It would add expenditure to car maker and
insurance company by replacing or repairing unnecessary parts, and they may require Auto-
Acoustic to share the cost.
2)Type II Error, i.e. fail to detect defects. And compensation obligations could occur for
potential accidents and lawsuits.
3)Replacement Threat. The technology will result in the dismissal or reallocation of auto parts
inspectors.
4)Conflict of Law. There are different legal and industrial regulations among jurisdictions in
terms of noise data-collection and car modification, making beforehand legal and industry
research indispensable. Good relations with governments and Industry Associations would
provide information advantage.