DRONES: Along with fast-moving advances in development and deployment of unmanned aircraft systems, commonly known as drones, comes recognition of the urgent need to create and refine the tools and technology to categorize, model, understand, map, and mitigate the accompanying noise. Some practitioners are calling for this to be done before the devices become ubiquitous, even urging that it is necessary for gaining public acceptance. The latest white paper by RSG makes these key observations: multicopter drone noise isn't always loud, but it is uniquely annoying and is expected to increase over the next decade; decibels do not fully capture the noise impact of multicopter drones; psychoacoustics captures the psychological effects of multicopter drone noise; acoustical modeling of drone flight paths is a tool to reduce potential noise impacts; noise mapping is appealing in the context of drones because it allows practitioners to apply a consistent method to estimate noise exposure over a large population; modeling drone routing would allow the public and private sectors to quantify and reduce the impacts of continued commercial drone operations before committing to the development or deployment of the technology in select areas; rapid deployment of drones without proactive noise mapping or modeling can incite significant community backlash and regulatory response.
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