Synthesis of aircraft noise operations

This paper provides an overview of the aircraft noise synthesis techniques that were developed within the European FP7 project COSMA (Community Orientated Solutions to Minimize Aircraft Noise Annoyance). The main ambition of COSMA is to develop engineering criteria for aircraft design and operations in order to reduce the annoyance within airport communities due to aircraft exterior noise. As a basis for this activity, a powerful aircraft flyover noise synthesis tool was developed, allowing psychometric studies and the analysis of community noise annoyance in relation to aircraft design and flight procedures. The sound synthesis tool integrates dedicated interfaces for on-line interactive sound quality analysis and for simulating complex airport noise scenarios based on aircraft source and noise propagation models. The main tool features are described and an example case study is presented, illustrating the noise modeling and audio synthesis. Next to that, an overview is given of the different airport noise scenarios that were synthesized in the COSMA project, considering standard and optimized procedures, existing aircraft and target sounds, as well as first examples of design optimizations, innovative concepts and low noise technologies.