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EAgLE: Equivalent Acoustic Level Estimator Proposal

2020; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3390/s20030701

1424-8220

Cláudio Guarnaccia,

Vehicle Noise and Vibration Control

Road infrastructures represent a key point in the development of smart cities. In any case, the environmental impact of road traffic should be carefully assessed. Acoustic noise is one of the most important issues to be monitored by means of sound level measurements. When a large measurement campaign is not possible, road traffic noise predictive models (RTNMs) can be used. Standard RTNMs present in literature usually require in input several information about the traffic, such as flows of vehicles, percentage of heavy vehicles, average speed, etc. Many times, the lack of information about this large set of inputs is a limitation to the application of predictive models on a large scale. In this paper, a new methodology, easy to be implemented in a sensor concept, based on video processing and object detection tools, is proposed: the Equivalent Acoustic Level Estimator (EAgLE). The input parameters of EAgLE are detected analyzing video images of the area under study. Once the number of vehicles, the typology (light or heavy vehicle), and the speeds are recorded, the sound power level of each vehicle is computed, according to the EU recommended standard model (CNOSSOS-EU), and the Sound Exposure Level (SEL) of each transit is estimated at the receiver. Finally, summing up the contributions of all the vehicles, the continuous equivalent level,