Interactive Simulation of Aircraft Noise in Aural and Visual Virtual Environments

This paper describes a novel aircraft noise simulation technique developed at RWTH Aachen University, which makes use of aircraft noise auralization and 3D visualization to make aircraft noise both heard and seen in immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environments. This technique is intended to be used to increase the residents’ acceptance of aircraft noise by presenting noise changes in a more directly relatable form, and also aid in understanding what contributes to the residents’ subjective annoyance via psychoacoustic surveys. This paper describes the technique as well as some of its initial applications. The reasoning behind the development of such a technique is that the issue of aircraft noise experienced by residents in airport vicinities is one of subjective annoyance. Any efforts at noise abatement have been conventionally presented to residents in terms of noise level reductions in conventional metrics such as A-weighted level or equivalent sound level Leq. This conventional approach however proves insufficient in increasing aircraft noise acceptance due to two main reasons – firstly, the residents have only a rudimentary understanding of changes in decibel and secondly, the conventional metrics do not fully capture what the residents actually find annoying i.e. characteristics of aircraft noise they find least acceptable. In order to allow least resistance to air-traffic expansion, the acceptance of aircraft noise has to be increased, for which such a new approach to noise assessment is required.