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Sergio Mazza, left, president and CEO of SenSound, Ravi Beniwal and founder Sean Wu work on an acoustic holography array at WSU.3D holograms let engineers 'see' sound
Startup company uses technology developed at WSU to help automakers identify noise sources.
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SenSound LLC, a start-up company based on technology developed at Wayne State University, hopes to help automakers quiet their rides by allowing engineers to "see" sound.
The company uses a patented combination of computer algorithms and an array of microphones and other hardware to produce something called near-field acoustic holography, which allows engineers to see sound in 3D space and real time.
The technology helps vehicle engineers identify sound sources in various vehicle parts, such as the instrument panel, and use that information to modify designs to eliminate unwanted noise.
Consumers are demanding quieter vehicles and much innovation in the auto industry is aimed at vehicle interiors, which have become one of the last places automakers can distinguish their vehicles from rivals' models.
President and CEO Sergio Mazza said SenSound will generate revenue by selling software, offering testing services and selling turn-key systems that include software and hardware.
Last year, all the company's revenues came from selling testing services, but SenSound started selling systems this year as well. Mazza declined to provide revenue figures.
"There is a huge need for this technology," says Mazza, who admits it may be a tough sell to the U.S. auto industry, with intense competition from foreign rivals claiming a bigger share of car and truck sales and squeezing profits for automakers and parts suppliers.
"The auto companies have armies of people looking at noise issues . . . The technology people have embraced the technology. But getting management to release money is a challenge."
Mazza hopes new quietness standards in Europe for off-road machinery beginning in 2006 will translate into sales and profits for the company.
Andrew DeWolfe is a product development engineer with Cadillac Products of Troy, which makes interior automotive trim and injection-molded parts, including door liners intended to keep water, air, dust and sound from a vehicle's interior.
DeWolfe's duties include finding new acoustic and sealing products for his customers. He first worked with SenSound founder Sean Wu on test projects when the technology was still a research project at Wayne State and had not been incorporated into a spin-off company.
"The technology not only gave us the accumulated amount of sound that came through our [watershield] and the whole door assembly but showed us where the largest amount of sound was coming from," DeWolfe said.
"Using this information, a part could be designed by increasing acoustic material in key areas, which hopefully would increase performance and/or lower cost."
DeWolfe said SenSound's technology lets companies target noise reduction early in the production process, which "cuts down on the amount of time and money spent covering up the noise later on."
DeWolfe said that Cadillac hasn't had a formal relationship since SenSound spun off from Wayne State, "but I hope to do some testing with them in the near future."
SenSound is based on technology developed by mechanical engineering professor Wu and his graduate students in Wayne State's acoustics, vibration and noise control laboratory. Five patents have been issued with several others pending.
The company was formed late in 2003 as part of the university's effort to turn on-campus research into off-campus profits through its technology management office. The office teamed up Wu with Northville attorney Gary Kendra and Mazza, an experienced business executive.
Kendra helped take Genomic Solutions of Ann Arbor public in 2002 and recently has been involved with Handylab, a fast-growing health-care diagnostics company spun off from the University of Michigan.
Mazza, who was president of Memorex USA, a $300 million division of Memorex, in the late 1980s, founded and ran a software-development company in Italy in the early 1990s and later was president and CEO of the American National Standards Institute in New York, a nonprofit organization that administers and coordinates a wide range of standards in American industry.
Tom Henderson is a Metro Detroit freelance writer.
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The Detroit News.
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