Effects of a hovering unmanned aerial vehicle on urban soundscapes perception
Effects of a hovering unmanned aerial vehicle on urban soundscapes perception
Several industry leaders and governmental agencies are currently investigating the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or ‘drones’ as commonly known, for an ever-growing number of applications from blue light services to parcel delivery. For the specific case of the delivery sector, drones can alleviate road space usage and also lead to reductions in CO
2 and air pollution emissions, compared to traditional diesel-powered vehicles. However, due to their unconventional acoustic characteristics and operational manoeuvres, it is uncertain how communities will respond to drone operations. Noise has been suggested as a major barrier to public acceptance of drone operations in urban areas. In this paper, a series of audio-visual scenarios were created to investigate the effects of drone noise on the reported loudness, annoyance and pleasantness of seven different types of urban soundscapes. In soundscapes highly impacted by road traffic noise, the presence of drone noise lead to small changes in the perceived loudness, annoyance and pleasantness. In soundscapes with reduced road traffic noise, the participants reported a significantly higher perceived loudness and annoyance and a lower pleasantness with the presence of the same drone noise. For instance, the reported annoyance increased from 2.3 ± 0.8 (without drone noise) to 6.8 ± 0.3 (with drone noise), in an 11-point scale (0-not at all, 10-extremely). Based on these results, the concentration of drone operations along flight paths through busy roads might aid in the mitigation of the overall community noise impact caused by drones.
Audio-visual effects, Drone noise, Listening experiments, Road traffic noise, Urban soundscape
1-20
Torija Martinez, Antonio
6dd0d982-fcd6-42b6-9148-211175fd3287
Li, Zhengguang
4efe8369-23ab-4933-8c0c-0f6bdea53c05
Self, Rodney
8b96166d-fc06-48e7-8c76-ebb3874b0ef7
January 2020
Torija Martinez, Antonio
6dd0d982-fcd6-42b6-9148-211175fd3287
Li, Zhengguang
4efe8369-23ab-4933-8c0c-0f6bdea53c05
Self, Rodney
8b96166d-fc06-48e7-8c76-ebb3874b0ef7
Torija Martinez, Antonio, Li, Zhengguang and Self, Rodney
(2020)
Effects of a hovering unmanned aerial vehicle on urban soundscapes perception.
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 78 (102195), , [102195].
(doi:10.1016/j.trd.2019.11.024).
Abstract
Several industry leaders and governmental agencies are currently investigating the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or ‘drones’ as commonly known, for an ever-growing number of applications from blue light services to parcel delivery. For the specific case of the delivery sector, drones can alleviate road space usage and also lead to reductions in CO
2 and air pollution emissions, compared to traditional diesel-powered vehicles. However, due to their unconventional acoustic characteristics and operational manoeuvres, it is uncertain how communities will respond to drone operations. Noise has been suggested as a major barrier to public acceptance of drone operations in urban areas. In this paper, a series of audio-visual scenarios were created to investigate the effects of drone noise on the reported loudness, annoyance and pleasantness of seven different types of urban soundscapes. In soundscapes highly impacted by road traffic noise, the presence of drone noise lead to small changes in the perceived loudness, annoyance and pleasantness. In soundscapes with reduced road traffic noise, the participants reported a significantly higher perceived loudness and annoyance and a lower pleasantness with the presence of the same drone noise. For instance, the reported annoyance increased from 2.3 ± 0.8 (without drone noise) to 6.8 ± 0.3 (with drone noise), in an 11-point scale (0-not at all, 10-extremely). Based on these results, the concentration of drone operations along flight paths through busy roads might aid in the mitigation of the overall community noise impact caused by drones.
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Transport D 2020 Hover Drone final
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e-pub ahead of print date: 19 December 2019
Published date: January 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Dr Zhengguang Li would like to thank the China Scholarship Council for the funding received (ref: 201808330656 ). The authors would also like to thank Dr J.LT. Lawrence for the collaboration and advice on setting up measurements in the Anechoic Doak Laboratory at the ISVR. Appendix A
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
Keywords:
Audio-visual effects, Drone noise, Listening experiments, Road traffic noise, Urban soundscape
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Local EPrints ID: 437284
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/437284
ISSN: 1361-9209
PURE UUID: fe9fcb9c-00bb-43ed-b8f0-78adb3c7b8ff
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Date deposited: 23 Jan 2020 17:34
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 05:15
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Author:
Antonio Torija Martinez
Author:
Zhengguang Li
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