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NoiseCapture, an application to evaluate the sound environment
Judicaël Picaut, a researcher in environmental acoustics, at Gustave Eiffel University
Discover NoiseCapture, an innovative solution that places humans and their smartphones at the center of the assessment of their sound environment.
The ever-rising number of pollution sources means that aiming to achieve a high quality sound environment has long been the priority at the European level. Major cities are now compelled to draw up action plans1 based on noise maps.
In this context, the Gustave Eiffel University and the CNRS have teamed up to develop an innovative solution in which people and their smartphones play a central role in evaluating their sound environment.
Photo credit: Gustave Eiffel University
Novel possibilities thanks to new technologies
Conventional noise mapping, using modelling, identifies the location of noise pollution, but does not allow us to evaluate environmental quality. To overcome this lack of realism2, some French cities have set up acoustic measurement networks. However, due to their cost, these monitoring systems can only have a limited number of measurement points, which means it is impossible to have a detailed representation of the environment at the conurbation scale.
The emergence of smart cities and so-called “low cost” sensors means that new technologies are being developed, which allow a huge increase in the density of observation points.
The best example of these is doubtless the smartphone. By its very nature this is connected, and it is also owned by a very large number of people3, It has the potential to become the largest mobile network that can be used for observing the sound environment. All we need is for users to be properly equipped and willing!
While “pocket sound meter” type acoustic measurement applications already exist, most are still unable to make an accurate evaluation of the sound environment. Other, more sophisticated, attempts have also been made in various parts of the world, as a part of research projects4 but few have proved viable.
Learn to use NoiseCapture with :
- The video presentation of the application website
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HznTpMFr3sw
- And the quick tutorial
A central role for users in creating noise maps
Gustave Eiffel University's UMRAE research unit and the CNRS Lab-STICC have joined forces in the framework of the European ENERGIC-OD project, receiving support from GEOPAL in order to develop the NoiseCapture application.
This Android application means users can evaluate their noise exposure, describe their sound environment using keywords, and then export this information into a community database.The collected data can then be used to construct more accurate noise maps, which can be accessed either on the smartphone or on line.
The success of this type of approach depends on the pooling of expertise - in the areas of acoustics, data processing, and geographical information - and on interactivity with the user.
Participation and openness, the DNA of NoiseCapture
NoiseCapture is a crowdsourcing project, relying on a community of data “producers”. The animation of the community goes through the organization of NoiseCapture Parties, during which the users meet each other to calibrate their smartphone, discuss the measurement protocol and carry out organised measurements at a given site.
NoiseCapture is an open data initiative. All of the data produced by NoiseCapture is then openly transferred, for use by all parties, including local authorities and government departments who will be able to use it is to gain a better understanding of how to conserve a high quality sound environment.
NoiseCapture is open sourcesoftware. That is to say that Internet users have access to the codes of the application and have the opportunity to participate in its development, either by reporting errors, or by suggesting improvements, or by enriching it by writing bits of code.
1 European Directive No. 2002-49 of 25 June 2002 2002/49/CE of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 June 2002 relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise :
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000337482&dateTexte=20130123
2 To give an example, road traffic, which is the main source of noise pollution in urban areas, is currently assessed on the basis of vehicles that travel at a constant speed on the network, even though it has now been shown that it is the dynamics of traffic, in terms of acceleration and deceleration, which are responsible for the perceived quality of the sound environment.
3 In 2015, 58% of the French population owned a smartphone. Source: : http://www.arcep.fr/fileadmin/reprise/publications/rapport/rap-2015/Chiffres-Cles_2015_2016.pdf
4 In particular, the Ambiciti initiative organised by INRIA (France), which combines noise and air pollution.
Find out more
- Gwenaël Guillaume, Arnaud Can, Gwendall Petit, Nicolas Fortin, Sylvain Palominos, et al.. Noise mapping based on participative measurements. Noise Mapping, 2016, 3 (1), pp.140-156. https://doi.org/10.1515/noise-2016-0011
- Erwan Bocher, Gwendall Petit, Nicolas Fortin, Judicaël Picaut, Gwenaël Guillaume, et al.. OnoM@p : a Spatial Data Infrastructure dedicated to noise monitoring based on volunteers measurements. OGRS2016, Open Source Geospatial Research & Education Symposium, 11p, 2016.
- Judicaël Picaut, Nicolas Fortin, Erwan Bocher, Gwendall Petit, Pierre Aumond, Gwenaël Guillaume. An open-science crowdsourcing approach for producing community noise maps using smartphones. Building and Environment. 2019. Vol. 148, pp. 20-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.10.049
- Judicaël Picaut ; Ayoub Boumchich, A.; Erwan Bocher ; Nicolas Fortin ; Gwendall Petit ; Pierre Aumond. A Smartphone-Based Crowd-Sourced Database for Environmental Noise Assessment. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 7777. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157777
Glossary
Crowdsourcing: Crowdsourcing is a form of participatory science which consits in inviting a large number of people to contribute to a scientific project through information and communication technologies by participating in the collect of data.
Open data: Open data refers to produced or collected digital data that an organization makes available so that everyone can freely access, use, modify and redistribute it, whatever their purpose.
Open source: Open source is an adjective given to software that is developed in accordance with the principles of the OSI, the Open Source Initiative, including the possibilities of free redistribution, access to source code and the creation of derivative works. Made available to the general public, open source software is generally the result of collaborative development involving a community of developers
Identity card of software and dataset
| Access to software: | https://github.com/Universite-Gustave-Eiffel/NoiseCapture |
| License: | GPL-3.0 license |
| Production: | since 2016 |
| Citation: | Judicaël Picaut, Nicolas Fortin, Erwan Bocher, Gwendall Petit, Pierre Aumond, Gwenaël Guillaume. An open-science crowdsourcing approach for producing community noise maps using smartphones. Building and Environment. 2019. Vol. 148, pp. 20-33. |
| Access to dataset: | 10.25578/J5DG3W |
| License: | Open Database License (ODbL) |
| Production: | 2017-2020 |
| Citation: | Judicaël Picaut, Nicolas Fortin, Erwan Bocher, Gwendall Petit, 2021, "NoiseCapture data extraction from August 29, 2017 until August 28, 2020 (3 years)", https://doi.org/10.25578/J5DG3W, data.univ-gustave-eiffel, V1 |
| Contact: | Judicaël Picaut, chercheur en acoustique environnementale, Université Gustave Eiffel |
| URL: | Site web Noise-Planet |
| Key words: | participatory science, open science, noise map, smartphone, sound environment, noise, pollution, city |
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