Sensibility Evaluation Technologies for an Enchanting Sound

When riding a well-designed super naked motorcycle, for example, the rider is able to enjoy an exciting ride thanks to both the stimulating intake sound*1 and the strong engine feel.
Our engineers need to understand the psychology of the rider in order to create suitable designs that will ensure the marketability of our products. However, since engineers cannot simply digitize the rider's sensibilities, this has proven to be one of the hardest aspects of our work.
To overcome this challenge, KHI has developed technologies for conducting sensibility evaluations based on the SD method*2, which allows us to scientifically analyze the impression created by elements that appeal to the rider's sensibilities.
We utilize the SD method to associate the sensibility terms with the correlating sounds of our product. We then use acoustic analysis technologies to associate these sounds with the correlating structures of the product. This process allows us to ensure that our product designs suitably reflect the sensibility terms.

*1 Intake sound: Sound generated when air is fed into the engine through the air cleaner box

*2 SD method: Semantic differential method

Z900 super naked model

Air cleaner box