Ubiquitous Real-time Noise Measurement. A Patent-Pending Method.

The WHO's Burden of Disease from Environmental Noise: Quantification of Healthy Life Years Lost in Europe highlighted the health-related effects of noise, such as cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, sleep disorders and tinnitus. Its results of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) point that at least one million years of healthy life are lost every year due to traffic-related noise in Western Europe. Is it possible to figure out less regulated markets as those in South and Central America and South Asia, or even regulated but noise-thorn as seeing in North America, China and Japan? Measurements hold the key to comprehending this public health problem. However, how to measure noise in urban traffic clogged arteries, airports neighborhood, school premises, hospitals and clinics, nursing homes, sports events and so forth? A standard approach is to use portable sound level meters and analyzers or investigation boxes with microphones built-in. The simulator (e.g. Simulation of Urban MObility - SUMO) plays another role in traffic with bulky limitations. Why not take real measurements instead of simulations? A team of Brazilian researchers developed a patent-pending method to reduce all these costs to delivery virtually real-time noise measurements in the transit, any other place, at any city, any time.