
The skies are nearing their peak – and louder than ever – as drone deliveries and electric vertical takeoff and landing of passenger planes will move from the moon to commercial. A former NASA engineer and former director of Uber's Air Taxi division is developing technology to ensure that more air traffic doesn't cause more noise.
Mark Moore, who was director of engineering at slotxo Uber Elevate until the day Joby Aviation was acquired. It launched its own company called Whisper Aero, a startup that came out of stealth this week. The goal was to design a thruster said to blend the noise emitted by the delivery drone and the background level eVTOL. making it almost invisible to the human ear.
It was a daunting challenge. There's more to solving audio problems than just turning down the volume. Noise profiles are also characterized by other variables such as frequency. For example, a helicopter has a main rotor and a tail rotor that produce two separate frequencies. That irritates the human ear more than a single frequency, Moore told TechCrunch in a recent interview.