How to make drones sound less annoying
Perception-influenced engineering
By integrating human responses into the design process, the most undesirable noises can be avoided in the earliest stages of vehicle development.
This can either be done directly with subjective testing (human participants assessing and providing feedback for a series of drone noise samples) or through the use of so-calledpsycho-acoustic metricswhich are widely adopted in the automotive industry. These metrics allow an accurate representation of how different sound features (pitch, temporal variations, tones) are perceived. We want to use them to inform the design of drones. For instance, optimizing the position of rotors to make drones sound less annoying.
The combination of virtual reality techniques and psycho-acoustic methods to inform the design and operation of drones will avoid costly and inefficient ad-hoc corrections at later stages, going beyond the traditional approach for aircraft noise assessment. But more importantly, if drone manufacturers incorporate these strategies into their designs, they might just build machines that are not only efficient, but also just that bit less irritating.
This article is republished byAntonio J Torija Martinez, Lecturer in Acoustic Engineering,University of SalfordfromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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