A Non-Invasive Method for the Safe Interaction of Cities and Electric Vehicle Fleets
For pedestrians and cyclists in urban environments, this method aims to improve safety by detecting quiet EVs, but it is preliminary and incremental.
The paper addresses the safety issue of quiet electric vehicles being hard to detect by pedestrians and cyclists, and proposes a non-invasive detection method using high-frequency audio emissions from EVs, tested on 4 vehicles with a preliminary detection algorithm.
Electric and hybrid vehicles are growing in popularity. While these vehicles produce less pollution, they also produce less audible noise, especially at lower speeds. This makes it harder for pedestrians and cyclists to detect an approaching vehicle. Thus, an additional system is required to detect electric and hybrid vehicles and alert pedestrians and cyclists of their whereabouts, especially while these vehicles are driving at low speeds in cities. This paper introduces one such method based on high frequency audio emissions that are present in EVs, which arise, for example, from the process of magnetostriction. Our method is tested experimentally using 4 different tests vehicles, and a preliminary EV detection algorithm is also presented.