Development of Aviation Environment Design Tool (AEDT) Based Simulation Model for Noise Analysis at Gimpo International Airport

As air travel demand in South Korea continues to grow in the post-COVID-19 era, the Korea Airports Corporation (KAC) has concerns about the environmental impacts related to airport noise, particularly in densely populated areas surrounding the Gimpo International Airport. In response to these concerns, the KAC plans to explore various what-if scenarios, such as deploying low-noise aircraft, to establish effective noise mitigation strategies. This paper can be considered as the on-going efforts and it aims to replicate the current airport operations by utilizing real-world operational data and developing a simulation model using the Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT). To develop the AEDT-based simulation model for noise analysis at the airport, this paper proposes a methodology that leverages a data-driven approach that includes three steps: data collection, data pre-processing, and baseline establishment. The AEDT-based simulation model is validated through single-flight analyses (e.g., TWB707 flight) as well as assessment of full one-day operations on April 26, 2024. The validation results show that the simulated noise levels closely match with actual noise measurement data at specific locations, indicating that the AEDT-based simulation model can be served as a robust baseline for testing a variety of what-if scenarios in future analyses.