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Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 126 - Virtual - March 2021
Agenda Location	9 SUBCOMMITTEE E – FLIGHT, PROPULSION, AND AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE CONTROL SYSTEMS 9.1 Acoustically-aware vehicles: Control driven noise reduction for Urban Air Mobility
Title	Acoustically-aware vehicles: Control driven noise reduction for Urban Air Mobility
Presenter	Kasey Ackerman and Andrew Patterson
Affiliation	NASA Langley Research Center and UIUC
Available Downloads*	presentation
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Abstract	Vehicle noise remains a significant barrier to public acceptance of Urban Air Mobility-class aircraft. This work focuses on motion planning for aircraft in noise-sensitive areas. First, a nonlinear Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) control law is used to generate a finite-horizon trajectory that satisfies acoustic level constraints at a set of (three-dimensional) observer locations. The MPPI framework places no restrictions on the class of state-dependent cost functionals that can be employed, making it well-suited for use with sophisticated acoustic models and metrics, in addition to dynamic and mission-relevant constraints. Next, we consider a trajectory generation method for synchronizing the propeller blades of an aircraft. The method takes desired vehicle position and propeller phase offset trajectories and computes the complete state trajectory and necessary control inputs. This method allows propeller synchronization to be incorporated into existing noise reduction frameworks without affecting the vehicle's spatial trajectory. The model-predictive control architecture is implementable in real-time. A simulation example demonstrates the controller's ability to modify the flight trajectory to satisfy acoustic constraints at multiple measurement locations. The synchronization method is demonstrated for a fixed spatial trajectory. Using an acoustic model that captures both the directional and periodic nature of propeller noise, the acoustic effects of changing the propeller phase offsets during a flight are simulated. The vehicle noise is reduced for appropriately chosen phase offsets.