Requirements for drone operations to minimise community noise impact

Ramos Romero, CA; Green, N; Roberts, S; Clark, C; Torija Martinez, AJ

Abstract

The number of applications for drones under R&D have growth significantly during the 12
last few years, however the wider adoption of these technologies requires ensuring public trust and 13
acceptance. Noise has been identified as one of the key concerns for public acceptance. Although 14
substantial research has been carried out to better understand the sound source generation mecha- 15
nisms in drones, important questions remain about the requirements for operational procedures 16
and regulatory framework. An important issue is that drones operate within different airspace, 17
closer to communities than conventional aircraft, and that the noise produced is highly tonal and 18
contains a greater proportion of high-frequency broadband noise compared to typical aircraft noise. 19
This is likely to cause concern for exposed communities, due to impacts on public health and well- 20
being. This paper presents a modelling framework for setting recommendations for drone opera- 21
tions to minimise community noise impact. The modelling framework is based on specific noise 22
targets e.g., the guidelines at a receiver position defined by WHO for sleep quality inside a residen- 23
tial property. The main assumption is that the estimation of drone noise exposure indoors is highly 24
relevant to inform operational constraints to minimise noise annoyance and sleep disturbance. This 25
paper illustrates the applicability of the modelling framework with a case study, where the values 26
of maximum A-weighted sound pressure levels

Citation

Ramos Romero, C., Green, N., Roberts, S., Clark, C., & Torija Martinez, A. (2022). Requirements for drone operations to minimise community noise impact. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15), https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159299

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 27, 2022
• Publication Date: Jul 29, 2022
• Deposit Date: Aug 1, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 1, 2022
• Journal: International Journal of environmental research and public health
• Electronic ISSN: 1660-4601
• Publisher: MDPI
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 15
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159299
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19159299