While the skies aren’t full of flying cars à la Jetsons yet, many Advanced Air Mobility or Urban Air Mobility aircraft programs are advancing. Before the skies get too crowded with these aircraft, though, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration wants to know whether the noise produced by a fleet of these vehicles buzzing around would become intolerable for those on the ground.
To that end, on March 15, NASA filed a notice on the Federal Register for Information Collection: Remotely Administered Psychoacoustic Test for Advanced Air Mobility Noise Human Response.
Flying Car Programs Advance
AAM and UAM programs, including electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, are plentiful, though it will still be a few years before they take off. Some key engineering challenges remain, not the least of which is the battery weight required to fly these aircraft long distances, the guidelines to approve each of the various aircraft as safe to operate, and air traffic management.
The Federal Aviation Administration published Version 2.0 of the Urban Air Mobility Concept of Operations in April last year. It was developed in collaboration with NASA and industry stakeholders. Their aim is to foster an AAM transportation system that will support passenger and cargo operations as well as other flight needs connecting urban and rural environments.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency is also making plans to accommodate UAM aircraft, predicting they will “become a reality in Europe within 3-5 years.”
A Noisy Flying Car Future Ahead?
Given these advances, it seems timely (or perhaps even a little late) for NASA to double-check that noise levels from the electrical rotors on these aircraft won’t be a problem.
NASA explains in its notice that “the human response to noise from these vehicles needs to be better understood to help minimize the noise impact.” It proposes to “execute a remotely administered test on human response to noise, which is called a psychoacoustic test, to acquire response to AAM/UAM vehicle noise.”
NASA has come up with a neat name for the test: the Varied AAM Noise and Geographic Area Response Difference, or VANGARD test.
It will use a testing methodology that NASA recently developed—the Remote Psychoacoustic Test Platform. Online tests would be administered to members of the public in U.S. regions where AAM/UAM aircraft are “likely to fly in the future.”
NASA writes, “Test subjects will participate in an online test application using their own computers and audio playback devices, such as headphones, to listen to calibrated sound stimuli.”
Flying Car Noise Tests Target
TGT
Metropolises And Their Suburbs
The goal of VANGARD is to determine whether people who live in quieter or noisier settings are significantly more annoyed by the added noise from AAM and UAM aircraft and whether the level of annoyance varies by geographic region.
Three “high ambient noise” urban regions mentioned to be targeted by the test are Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York City. NASA would gather data for “low ambient noise” in the suburbs of those cities.
“‘Low’ ambient environments are suburban areas along likely AAM/UAM flight paths within 100 miles of the urban center,” NASA explains. The targeted regions will be selected by Zip Code based on existing noise survey data from the National Park Service.
From these tests, NASA hopes to learn whether annoyance levels vary by the AAM/UAM phase of flight—takeoff, landing, and cruise. They also hope to learn whether the level of annoyance varies depending on how close people are to the aircraft flight operation. They will then also study whether the annoyance results correlate with objective measures like “sound quality metrics; spectra; and amplitude envelope.” They will also give out post-experiment questionnaires to determine whether the results can be explained by noise sensitivity.
NASA will be taking comments on the proposed test until May 14, 2024.
Noise level testing has previously led to regulatory policies that limit aircraft operations, most notably the ban on supersonic flights over the U.S. mainland.
