Ep. 11 Mechanical Birds - Drones and Soundscapes with Dr. Antonio Torija

In our very first episode, we learned that not all natural sounds are equal, and not all of them are pleasant. In today's episode, we'll talk about how not all mechanical sounds are equal and not all of them are necessarily bad. As we move into the "age of the future" we expect to see drones flying around our cities, dropping off packages and making our skies look like those of Coruscant from Star Wars. But what do these drones sound like? Are they good or bad? What do they mean for the soundscapes of our cities?

Today, we're speaking with Antonio Torija-Martinez, a Lecturer in Acoustic Engineering at the University of Salford about the noise of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. He'll take us through his recent research on whether we can design drones to sound pleasant (or at least, less annoying), and how these drones impact urban soundscapes. And, if you'll indulge us a bit, I hope you enjoy some rambling off into our thoughts on how we measure and describe complex soundscapes. Enjoy!

Follow Antonio on Twitter @ajtorija

Psychoacoustic analysis of contra-rotating propeller noise for unmanned aerial vehicles - https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/10.0003432 

Make drones sound less annoying by factoring in humans at the design stage -  https://theconversation.com/make-drones-sound-less-annoying-by-factoring-in-humans-at-the-design-stage-151421

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Twitter: @JustNoisePod                 

Find our website: https://www.justnoisepod.com/
Twitter: @JustNoisePod