The science of soundscape - summary of the evidence base from the UK acoustics community

The Science of Soundscape – Summary of the Evidence Base from the UK Acoustics Community provides a comprehensive summary of the scientific evidence supporting the use of a soundscape approach in environmental design and planning. The lead author was Peter Rogers; we contributed to the text with a case study, Soundscape approach for a residential development. The paper was written in response to a request from the UK House of Lords for information on the evidence base around soundscapes and their benefits for wellbeing. It provides background on the concept of soundscapes as distinct from just noise levels. Soundscapes consider the perception of sound in context. The paper summarizes evidence from many studies showing health and wellbeing benefits of natural sounds and positive soundscapes. Case studies demonstrate practical applications of soundscape principles in urban design projects. The paper calls for greater inclusion of soundscapes in policy frameworks, citing initial steps taken in Wales. It brings together views of many UK acoustics experts to give a broad scientific summary of the current state of knowledge on soundscapes. The paper makes the case for the science supporting soundscapes as a complement to traditional noise management, with benefits for human health and sustainability. It provides evidence requested by policymakers considering this approach

Investigating the Dose Response of UAS Noise: Designing a Listening Experiment

In collaboration with the UK Civil Aviation Authority, the University of Salford is carrying out research to better understand the human perception and dose response of Unmaned Aerial Systems (UAS) noise. A listening experiment has been conducted to investigate the perception, both in terms of perceived annoyance and loudness, of a number of UAS flyovers in comparison with more familiar sources of transportation noise such as civil aircraft, helicopters and road vehicles. This experiment is divided into two parts: Part 1 investigates the noise perception of a series of flyovers, or pass-bys, for each of these transportation vehicles; and Part 2 provides participants with pairs of sounds at standardised sound levels to compare perceived annoyance and loudness of UAS sounds with civil aircraft, helicopter and road vehicle sounds. This paper will focus on a detailed description of the development and planning of the listening experiment, and the description of some preliminary results. The findings of this experiment are expected aid the derivation of penalties or relaxations (compared to other transportation noise sources) which could be applied to UAS noise to inform appropriate environmental noise impact assessment metrics

sUAS noise characterisation during hovering operations

In the framework of the EPSRC - UK DroneNoise project, a multi-channel methodology for small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) noise measurement was applied under controlled conditions. The measurement campaign was carried out during August 2022 in Edzell Village, Scotland.This paper presents preliminary results of the application of this measurement technique in the field for a series of sUAS hovering. Noise signals were recorded from three quadcopters and one hexacopter in stationary flight using a linear microphone array.The data were then analysed in both the time (Leq, LAmax) and frequency (tonal and broadband components) domains. In addition, back-propagation techniques were included in the calculations of noise directivity over the position of the aligned microphones. Comparisons of the acoustic footprint of the tested sUAS are also feasible from acoustic and psychoacoustic metrics. The method presented has capabilities for reporting the sound quality metrics for different emission angles to aid psychoacoustic assessment of sUAS noise