Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study evaluating the human perception of the noise produced by small quadcopter UAVs. The study utilised recordings of the noise produced by several different quadcopter UAVs in hover and in constant-speed flight at a fixed altitude. These recordings were made using an eigenmic system. The recordings were reproduced using a 3D sound reproduction system located in the large anechoic chamber at the University of Auckland. Human subjects were asked to rate the annoyance of the recordings. The responses of the test subjects are presented and these are compared with objective metrics to assess suitable metrics for quantifying the impact of noise from these vehicles on humans.