A Faust Based Driving Simulator Sound Synthesis Engine

A driver’s awareness while on the road is a critical factor in his or her ability to make decisions to avoid hazards, plan routes and maintain safe travel. Situational awareness is gleaned not only from visual observation of the environment, but also the audible cues the environment provides police sirens, honking cars, and crosswalk beeps, for instance, alert the driver to events around them. In our ongoing project on “investigating the influence of audible cues on driver situational awareness”, we implemented a custom audio engine that synthesizes in real time the soundscape of our driving simulator and renders it in 3D. This paper describes the implementation of this system, evaluates it and suggests future improvements. We believe that it provides a good example of use of a technology developed by the computer music community outside of this field and that it demonstrates the potential of the use of driving simulators as a music performance venue.