Fly with less noise and pollution
Environmental impacts of the aviation sector are a major concern for the EU, which is striving to find ways to mitigate its harmful effects that include aircraft exhaust emissions and excessive noise. The EU-funded project 'Anotec real-time model for noise exposure of aircraft' (ARMONEA) worked on new ways to reduce emissions and noise of jet aircraft. The project looked at optimising in-flight 4D trajectories through simulation technology to improve environmental performance and reduce associated operational costs. These are calculated based on the amount of carbon dioxide produced, nitrogen oxides emitted, fuel consumed, time involved and amount of noise perceived by the population surrounding an airport. In more specific terms, the project team looked at improving on-board and on-ground systems to bring prototypes to avionics systems demonstration platforms. It worked on articulating specifications and design for enhanced aircraft noise prediction modelling that can be used in real-time applications. Overall, ARMONEA developed a completely new noise model that enables rapid calculations with reduced data requirements and an accuracy comparable to other complex software packages. After elaborating a detailed design of the simplified noise model and developing the associated software package, researchers defined a test plan to verify the viability of the newly developed software.This model is set to help decrease the noise impact 'on-the-fly' as part of a wider scheme for minimising environmental impact of aircraft operations. ARMONEA is expected to help achieve the harmonisation of aircraft noise predictions in Europe. If the project's results are effectively exploited, Europe will hopefully enjoy cleaner and quieter skies.
Keywords
Aviation, environmental impact, noise pollution, exhaust emissions, aircraft operations
