There are the annoying squeaks, thuds of bearings and sometimes twitching sounds. If your car seems to express itself through new sounds, it may be to announce the imminent failure of parts that the information system cannot detect. A start-up has found a solution to listen and identify the cause of these suspicious noises.
Vroum-paf-paf, clac-clac, grouic… When the car makes suspicious noises while driving, there is sometimes cause for concern. This is all the more the case when a car is lined with sensors supposed to monitor the slightest malfunction, including tire pressure, and the on-board computer does not appear. To identify what the car cannot do on its own, the American company V2M (pour « vehicle-to-maintenance “) has developed a system that literally listens for suspicious noises that a vehicle might emit.
To do this, two electroacoustic detection modules must be installed under the front and rear of the car. Between the two, there is a control unit which centralizes and registers the slightest squeak or suspicious snap. The sounds are transformed into digital signals, then sent to the company’s server for analysis. Here once more, it is an Artificial Intelligence endowed with absolute pitch and the talent of an experienced mechanic, which determines the type of problem that the vehicle may encounter. Rather than waiting for a big boom, the AI will direct the driver to the garage via a dedicated app.
A mechanical-music-loving AI
This type of alert can also potentially be sent to the car’s information system, as well as to the manufacturer, or even to the operator of a fleet. In terms of acoustic capacity, the system knows how to recognize the wear of the bearings, of certain seals and bellows, but also of the distribution rollers at the end of the race, problems of tension on the belts. V2M still has to teach the AI to identify problematic sounds related to suspensions. The process is valid for all types of vehicles whether driven by a thermal or electric motor. It is also on a Tesla that the prototype of this system was tested. In a spirit diametrically opposed to low-carbon mobility, but with a lot of noise, Ferrari might also be interested in the V2M system.
