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Greater customer awareness is driving the automotive industry to constantly look to innovate and ensure that greater time, efforts and considerable resources are spent in developing a better vehicle. As we move away from noisy vehicles, the differentiating parameter in vehicles is the perception of quality in the vehicle noise or sound. As the masking effect due to overall vehicle noise level abates, many low noise sources gain prominence, which directly influences the perception of noise refinement. Hence, the concept of vehicle interior noise is not only limited to lower noise levels but has also extended to better sound quality (SQ). SQ technique involves use of relevant parameters for quantifying a subjective quality into an objective quantity. This paper will look at parameters relevant to subjective perception of vehicle interior noise and consider a benchmarking methodology targeting vehicle sound quality.

Modal analysis is a specialized tool which has been used for many years to reliably estimate various parameters such as natural frequency, mode shape and damping. Since these parameters have direct relevance to the behavior of any component or structure and the resultant vibrations, the methods used for evaluation of these have been taken up as a part of this project. MATLAB is a platform that serves analysis purpose and offers many advantages over dedicated, menu driven systems. Open function assure flexibility and possibility to modify functions for specific needs and also providing traceability and quality assurance. The current paper targets to make a comparative evaluation of various modal parameter estimators using existing MATLAB tools for determining modal parameters for simple structures. FRF measurements on simple structures are carried out and the data is processed using MATLAB run parameter estimators.