An investigation into human response to unmanned aerial vehicle
noise

Nicholls, RK; Torija Martinez, AJ

Abstract

It is predicted that urban air mobility, including the use of small to medium sized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) delivery systems, will be introduced into cities across the globe within the next 15 years. It is known, however, that noise is one of the main limiting factors for the wider adoption of these vehicles. Neither the metrics nor the methods used for conventional aircraft seem to be optimal for this novel source of noise. This research will aid in developing suitable psychoacoustic methodologies and metrics, specifically designed to quantify the community noise impact of these vehicles. This paper describes a psychoacoustic experiment used to gather participant responses to UAV sound recordings, performing a variety of different operations at differing distances. Results from this psychoacoustic experiment will be used to correlate perceptions of UAV noise with objective sound quality metrics, and build new regression relationships that could describe the impact of a given UAV on a community, as well as give insight into the key sound quality metrics that contribute to the perceived annoyance. Future extension to the research may include assessing the impact of introducing drone noise to a variety of soundscapes, evaluating the differences in psychoacoustic responses when introducing more accurate reproduction methods, such as virtual reality systems, and how these could be incorporated into a standardised human response measurement procedure.

Citation

noise. NOISE-CON proceedings, 577-588. https://doi.org/10.3397/IN-2021-1570

• Journal Article Type: Conference Paper
• Conference Name: 50th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering
• Conference Location: Washington, DC, USA
• End Date: Aug 5, 2021
• Acceptance Date: May 20, 2021
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 30, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 30, 2021
• Journal: INTER-NOISE and NOISE-CON Congress and Conference Proceedings, InterNoise21, Washington, D.C., USA
• Print ISSN: 0736-2935
• Pages: 577-588
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3397/IN-2021-1570
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.3397/IN-2021-1570
• Related Public URLs: https://ince.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/ince/incecp;jsessionid=27wn6igrf7353.x-ic-live-02; https://internoise2021.org/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference; Projects : InCEPTion