Psychoacoustic analysis of contra-rotating propeller noise for unmanned aerial vehicles

Torija Martinez, Antonio J.; Paruchuri, C; Zhengguang, L

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies are rapidly advancing due to the unlimited number of applications from parcel delivery to people transportation. As the UAV market expands, community noise impact will become a significant problem for public acceptance. Compact drone architectures based on contra-rotating propellers bring significant benefits in terms of aerodynamic performance and redundancy to ensure vehicle control in case of component failure. However, contra-rotating propellers are severely noisy if not designed appropriately. In the framework of a perception-influenced design approach, this paper investigates the optimal rotor spacing distance configuration to minimise noise annoyance. On the basis of a series of psychoacoustic metrics (i.e., loudness, fluctuation strength, roughness, sharpness, and tonality) and psychoacoustic annoyance (PA) models, the optimal rotor axial separation distance (expressed as a function of propeller blade diameter) is at a range from 0.2 to 0.4. This paper also discusses the performance of currently available psychoacoustic models to predict propeller noise annoyance and defines further work to develop a PA model optimised for rotating systems.

Citation

Torija Martinez, A. J., Paruchuri, C., & Zhengguang, L. (2021). Psychoacoustic analysis of contra-rotating propeller noise for unmanned aerial vehicles. ˜The œJournal of the Acoustical Society of America (Online), 149(2), 835-846. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003432

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 8, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Feb 3, 2021
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 12, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 3, 2021
• Journal: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
• Print ISSN: 0001-4966
• Volume: 149
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 835-846
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003432
• Keywords: Acoustics and Ultrasonics, Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003432
• Related Public URLs: http://asa.scitation.org/journal/jas
• Additional Information: Access Information : The following article appeared in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 149, 835 (2021); and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0003432. Copyright 2021 Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America.