Geospatial Sound Modeling for Military and Community Noise Metrics

In Phase I, Ambient Logic will create a Geospatial Sound Model (GSM) that estimates multiple indicators of the background noise across the contiguous United States (CONUS). Given either latitude/longitude coordinates or an address, the GSM will provide the daytime ambient noise spectrum in one-third octave bands, the DNL, and the A-weighted Leq for all 24 hours. Prediction accuracy of these metrics will be measured by rigorous cross validation. Ambient Logic will increase the efficiency of GSM formulation and mitigate the effects of wind noise in the current geospatial database to achieve greater speed and accuracy. They will also investigate the impact of data on model predictions, showing how many new measurements are necessary to reach the desired accuracy in a region. In anticipation of expanding to OCONUS regions, properties of globally available data sources will be assessed and a method will be developed to target locations for acoustic measurements that will provide the most benefit. In Phase II, the GSM will provide expanded noise estimates for both CONUS and OCONUS locations. Similar to how current weather models rapidly update as measured conditions change, the Phase II GSM will accept fresh data to improve estimates at locations with limited data.