Synthesis of real world drone signals based on lab recordings

• Main Authors: Heutschi Kurt, Ott Beat, Nussbaumer Thomas, Wellig Peter
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2020-01-01
• Series: Acta Acustica
• Online Access: https://acta-acustica.edpsciences.org/articles/aacus/full_html/2020/06/aacus200056/aacus200056.html

There is a great interest in the generation of plausible drone signals in various applications, e.g. for auralization purposes or the compilation of training data for detection algorithms. Here, a methodology is presented which synthesises realistic immission signals based on laboratory recordings and subsequent signal processing. The transformation of a lab drone signal into a virtual field microphone signal has to consider a constant pitch shift to adjust for the manoeuvre specific rotational speed and the corresponding frequency dependent emission strength correction, a random pitch shift variation to account for turbulence induced rotational speed variations in the field, Doppler frequency shift and time and frequency dependent amplitude adjustments according to the different propagation effects. By evaluation of lab and field measurements, the relevant synthesizer parameters were determined. It was found that for the investigated set of drone types, the vertical radiation characteristics can be successfully described by a generic frequency dependent directivity pattern. The proposed method is applied to different drone models with a total weight between 800 g and 3.4 kg and is discussed with respect to its abilities and limitations comparing both, recordings taken in the lab and the field.