Metrics for assessing the perception of drone noise

Torija Martinez, AJ; Li, Z

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology is rapidly
advancing, and therefore, the potential for UAV use
seems almost unlimited at this stage. Diverse UAV
stakeholders are currently exploring the feasibility of
different UAV applications for monitoring, intervention
to improve or support public services and parcel delivery.
It seems quite likely that, in a short while, communities in
urban areas will be inundated with a new source of noise
due to UAV operations that they had not before
encountered. Noise has been suggested as one of the
major barriers of UAVs to public acceptance, and
therefore, for the expansion of the sector. The noise of
UAVs does not resemble the noise of contemporary
aircraft (or any other transportation noise), which leads to
an important uncertainty in the prediction of the resultant
perception of UAV noise. Previous research has
suggested that contemporary noise metrics are unable to
account for the qualitative aspects of the particular
features of UAV noise. Based on a previous
psychoacoustic characterisation of a small fixed-pitch
quadcopter, this paper presents the results of a
psychoacoustic experiment as a first approach for the
development of metrics optimised for UAV noise.
Preliminary results suggest that a combined metric
including Tonality and Loudness-Sharpness interaction is
able to account for the perceptual features of UAV noise.

Citation

Torija Martinez, A., & Li, Z. Metrics for assessing the perception of drone noise. Presented at e-Forum Acusticum 2020, Online

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: e-Forum Acusticum 2020
• Conference Location: Online
• End Date: Dec 11, 2020
• Acceptance Date: Oct 29, 2020
• Publication Date: Dec 11, 2020
• Deposit Date: Dec 17, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 5, 2021
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.48465/fa.2020.0018
• Publisher URL: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03233630
• Related Public URLs: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference