Powered seat adjuster noise characteristics and its psychoacoustics assessment

In order to improve the noise performance for the seat adjuster mechanism, noise and vibration measurements were conducted in both European and Australian cars for six and eight modes of the seat adjustment operations on the driver’s seat. The six modes of the driver’s seat operations are: both up for the front and rear seat ends, both down for the front and rear seat ends, front seat end up, front seat end down, rear seat end up and rear seat end down. The eight modes of the seat operations are: forward, backward, both up for the front and rear seat ends, both down for the front and rear seat ends, front seat end up, front seat end down, rear seat end up and rear seat end down. The noise and vibration levels, sound quality and the root causes for the noise problems have been analysed and discussed for the six and eight modes of the seat adjustment operations. The noise characteristics have been identified; the psychoacoustic parameters have been used to quantify the sound quality of the seat adjuster and the assessment results have been found to match well with subjective evaluation results.