Sound quality factors influencing annoyance from hovering UAV

Abstract

This study investigates psychoacoustic aspects of the noise of multi-rotor type unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Two psychoacoustic experiments were performed for a dual purpose: to examine the difference of annoyance induced by the noise from three types of UAVs and a civil aircraft and also to identify the acoustic factors influencing the annoyance from UAV noise. In the first experiment, the annoyance of each stimulus was quantified from psychoacoustic tests and compared with each other. The psychoacoustic tests confirms that UAV noise generally causes more annoyance than civil aircraft noise at the same loudness level. The physical and psychoacoustic indices of the stimuli were analyzed statistically using principal component analysis and regression. The loudness, sharpness and fluctuation strength were derived as significant factors that affect the annoyance of UAV noise. In the second experiment, six new sound samples were created by modifying the sharpness and the fluctuation strength of one representative UAV noise to check the results of the first experiment. Regressions of the test results reaffirmed that the sharpness and fluctuation strength are significant in the annoyance of UAV noise.