Optimisation of site-specific noise abatement departure procedures

Abstract

The optimisation of aircraft noise abatement procedures involves several conflicting factors, including several noise sensitive locations and aircraft operating costs. This paper presents some strategies that aim at better assessing these compromises when optimising site-specific noise abatement departure procedures that take into account the actual populated areas, their type and distribution, the hour of the day where the trajectory is supposed to be flown and the aircraft type. A special emphasis is given to the fairness of the trajectory with regards to the populated areas exposed to noise. In this context, a noise annoyance deviation index is proposed as optimisation objective. Moreover a multi-objective optimisation strategy, employing goal, lexicographic-egalitarian and hierarchical optimisation techniques is presented. An illustrative example is given with the design of the East departures at Girona airport, Catalonia (Spain). Results point out how the noise annoyance impact of current operational procedures can be significantly reduced by the optimised trajectories and show, as well, an important dependency on the type of aircraft and the hour of the day.