VTOL Flight Path and Propulsor Control for Noise Mitigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft pose noise challenges in residential areas, limiting their viability for urban transportation due to their noise signatures, which existing technologies have not adequately addressed.
Innovation Solution
A system that utilizes real-time noise data from onboard and offboard sensors, combined with network and predictive data, to adjust the aircraft's operations, such as propeller speed and routing, to mitigate noise signatures, selecting quieter aircraft routes and altering flight paths to minimize noise impact on sensitive areas.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If VTOL aircraft operate in urban areas to provide transportation services, then transportation demand is met and travel time is reduced, but noise signature increases and community acceptance decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts aircraft operations including routing, speed, and propeller settings in real-time based on current noise data from sensors and predicted acceptable noise levels for different geographic areas, allowing the aircraft to adapt its noise profile to environmental conditions
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses real-time noise data from onboard and offboard sensors combined with predicted acceptable noise level data to create a feedback loop that continuously monitors and adjusts aircraft operations to maintain noise levels within acceptable thresholds for different geographic zones
2Productivity
If aircraft speed is increased to improve transportation efficiency, then productivity increases, but noise signature increases and harmful effects worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts aircraft speed in real-time based on geographic location and predicted acceptable noise levels, allowing variable speed operation that optimizes both efficiency and noise impact rather than maintaining constant high speed
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes operational parameters including speed, routing, and propeller settings to balance transportation efficiency with noise mitigation requirements of different geographic areas
Data Source
AI summary
Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can provide opportunities to incorporate aerial transportation into transportation networks for cities and metropolitan areas. However, VTOL aircraft may be noisy. To accommodate this, the aircraft may utilize onboard sensors, offboard sensing, network, and predictive temporal data for noise signature mitigation. By building a composite understanding of real data offboard the aircraft, the aircraft can make adjustments to the way it is flying and verify this against a predicted noise signature (via computational methods) to reduce environmental impact. This might be realized via a change in translative speed, propeller speed, or choices in propulsor usage (e.g., a quiet propulsor vs. a high thrust, noisier propulsor). These noise mitigation actions may also be decided at the network level rather than the vehicle level to balance concerns across a city and relieve computing constraints on the aircraft.