Officials at Hughes probe the potential of new computerized noise monitoring system.

Officials at El Segundo-based Hughes Aircraft Co. are studying the global market potential for a new computerized noise monitoring system that potentially can help the automobile industry produce quieter, more reliable cars.

But although the noise monitoring system also can be used in the aerospace industry, General Motors Corp.-owned Hughes is marketing it mostly in the car-making industry.

The device was patented by Hughes' Ground Systems Group in 1990, when the division was based in Canada. It had sold only 33 of them by last January, when the division moved to Fullerton, just across the Los Angeles County line.

Hughes new noise-monitoring systems and more traditional vibration-monitoring equipment is computerized to assess equipment failure potential. The sound or vibration made by each piece of equipment being tested is analyzed by the computer and printed out so it can be compared to the computerized printout of the same type of equipment in optimum condition. As such, computerized testing equipment can detect the slightest excesses in noise or vibration.

"Our system classifies defects in rotary or reciprocating equipment with vibration or acoustic measurements. It provides different ways of looking at data to see if parts are defective," said Hughes' senior staff engineer of noise reduction programs, Paul Edie. A water pump is an example of rotary equipment. The engine with its pistons and crankshaft is an example of reciprocating equipment.

In the coming months, Hughes will pitch the computerized sound-monitoring system to companies that mass produce products or components with moving parts. The automotive industry with its production-line manufacturing techniques that produce millions of cars per year is potentially a larger customer category than the aerospace industry which produces far fewer units. In the months ahead, Hughes hopes to sell some of its computerized testing units to subsidiaries of Hughes' parent company, Detroit-based General Motors Corp., and its subcontractors, Edie said.

The black box combines sonar technology that Hughes developed for U.S. Navy submarines with digital computer technology, used to create laser discs. The computer identifies and eliminates background noise that makes it hard to analyze the sound of the equipment being tested, Edie said. General Motors uses the computerized noise-monitoring system to test automatic transmissions and power steering units.

Hughes isn't keeping the technology for itself. It has sold computerized testing equipment to its parent firm's competitor, Ford Motor Co. Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Highland Park, Mich.-based Chrysler Corp. also may buy some of the black boxes for their quality-control systems, Edie said.

The smaller of the two models of the "black box" sells for $12,000 to $13,000; the larger for $25,000. When Hughes sells and installs the system, it typically charges $35,000 to $50,000, Edie said.

"The equipment interacts with assembly-line quality control stations. If the manufacturer changes the specifications of a component, it makes a new template that can be used on the same testing unit," Edie said. The template is the set of sound or vibration patterns that are acceptable. If the equipment being tested produces patterns that differ greatly from the patterns, it is rejected.

Hughes new computerized noise-monitoring system can be used in Los Angeles's aerospace industry but faces competition from computerized vibration-monitoring systems that first were developed 20 years ago. Edie said the Hughes system is the most advanced because it can be programmed to take out background noise and enhance the sounds made by the key operating components, unlike computerized vibration-monitoring systems.

Despite Hughe's claims, companies that make vibration-monitoring equipment are skeptical about the Hughes computerized noise-monitoring black box.

Darrell Grouse, a hardware and software expert at Minden, Nev.-based Bently Nevada Corp., points out the downside. He said researchers are constantly developing hardware and software to make better computerized vibration-monitoring equipment that, in most applications, will serve the aerospace industry better than the Hughes computerized noise-monitoring system.

"We don't use sound analyzers because changes in temperature, barometric pressure and wind velocity come into play. They would make the sound of the engine differ but not the vibration," Grouse said.

Wilmington-based Electronic Balancing Co. uses a $250,000 computerized diagnostic system that measures vibrations made by motors or turbines. Since it can localize the defect, it saves technicians time and money that otherwise would be spent tearing open and testing each part of a turbine or pumping system to make sure it is functioning properly, said Electronic Balancing President Lance Kouchi.

"Vibration measurements are more accurate than sound measurements. For instance, a jet turbine rotating at thousands of revolutions per minute produces a noise called blade-pass frequency. It makes a lot of noise but doesn't mean the turbine is faulty," Kouchi said.

Computerized sound and vibration testing also is important to the Los Angeles County aerospace industry. In one case, gyroscopes made to guide satellites Magnavox Brands, a subsidiary of Knoxville, Tenn.-based Phillips Consumer Electronics Co., didn't work. Magnavox Brands couldn't find the problem until Kouchi and his technicians analyzed the vibrations made by the gyroscope and found that it (the gyroscope) had bad bearings.

"You can't just go out and buy a machine that will do it all. You have to learn how to read the data the computer gives you," Kouchi said.

Kouchi said he isn't worried that defense cutbacks will destroy his business.

"Electronic Balance has always had two major client groups, companies that manufacture equipment and the firms who own the equipment and have to service it. We aren't doing as much work for the manufacturers but I'm just as busy as I ever was because businesses are servicing their existing equipment more carefully," Kouchi said.