Human response to the flyover noise of different types of drones recorded in field measurements

Abstract

The current study reports the results of a psychoacoustic listening experiment investigating the human response to the noise emissions from various types of drone flyovers, recorded during acoustic field experiments. The investigation covers six quadcopters with single propellers, a quadcopter with counterrotating propellers, and two types of hybrid electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) drones. These recorded audio samples were employed in a dedicated listening experiment conducted at the Psychoacoustic Listening Laboratory (PALILA) in the faculty of Aerospace Engineering of Delft University of Technology, involving 57 participants. The two eVTOL drones were perceived as considerably less annoying than their quadcopter counterparts, whereas the coaxial-propeller quadcopter was found to be the most annoying drone. Strong correlations were found between the mass and volume of the quadcopter drones and the annoyance ratings from the listening experiments. Psychoacoustic annoyance metrics from different models proved to predict the perceived noise annoyance more accurately than conventional sound metrics typically employed in noise assessment.