Developing a Flight Plan to Reduce Aircraft Noise Exposure in Cities

Overview

The problem of excessive exposure to aircraft noise has persisted since the dawn of aviation. The Federal Aviation Administration’s regulations thus require airplanes to make detours in order to avoid exposing certain cities to high levels of noise, which reduces the efficiency of the airplanes. Our model seeks to develop a flight path that will maximize efficiency while minimizing noise production. In order to model aircraft noise, we built a program on Netlogo. We started by constructing a simplified case in which all airplanes flew directly toward their destination. Then, we implemented a modification which avoided excessive noise creation by having the airplanes fly around cities already exposed to a certain level of noise. While the second method substantially reduced noise levels, it also decreased efficiency because the airplanes had much longer flight paths. Our third method combines aspects of the first two by calculating a path that minimizes the detour distance as well as the noise exposure using a numerical optimization function on the two variables. Because the model succeeded in producing an optimal flight path for a randomly generated landscape, it can be adapted to create flight paths for all airplanes. The most important factor in determining the optimal flight path is the radius at which the noise from a plane can be heard. Reducing the noise radius through technological advancements will greatly improve the efficiency of the optimal flight plan.

Competition history

• AJAS 2017 Category not listed

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