MAV ROUNDUP

Engineering Silence

Student wins national noise control award

Manya Singh, a senior mechanical engineering student, won a national award—the Leo Beranek Student Medal for Excellence in the Study of Noise Control from the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the USA—for her work to decrease cabin noise in au¬tonomous rideshare cars owned by May Mobility, which operates around the UTA campus. She is the third UTA student to earn the honor.

“It was a great opportunity to work with autonomous vehicles,” Singh says. “Having this experience gives me a lot to talk about with potential employers.”

Singh and her senior design team worked with May Mobility and the city of Arlington on the project, which focused on reducing loud noise from a computer fan mounted in the rear of the vehicles that was creating an uncomfortable en¬vironment for riders. The team was able to reduce the noise from 75dB, about as loud as a dishwasher or shower, to 50dB, or about as loud as a quiet refrigerator

“I believe it will have a big impact on people’s experience with autonomous vehicle technology and the advancement of urban mobility,” says Yawen Wang, assistant professor of research and di¬rector of the Vibro-Acoustics and Sound Quality Research Laboratory at UTA.