The acoustic isolated laboratory enables research i.a. on noise effects in comfort perception in aircraft cabins.
Temperature, lighting, and seating can be variably adapted to the particular environmental conditions required for study. Thus, for examinations on the effect of background noise on speech intelligibility of loudspeaker announcements, performance, and passenger well-being during short-haul flights 18 original aircraft seats are installed, whereas panels with loudspeakers for announcements and reading lamps are mounted like in a real aircraft.
The configuration of the acoustic laboratory, expecially of the loudspeaker system (see pictures on the right side) facilitates a high flexibility in realising various experiments. Adjustment possibilities of the loudspeaker system for announcements in horizontal and vertical directions, variable setting of climate conditions (i.e. temperature, air humidity in later extension), and lighting (brightness and colours) as well as flexible arrangement options of the seats allow for research objectives other than airline passenger comfort studies. Thus, experiments on sleep of pilots and crew exposed to aircraft noise in the crew rest compartment on long-haul flights could be realised as well as studies on railway comfort.
Studies on airline passenger comfort with a even higher number of subjects and external validity can be conducted using the DLR-research aircraft Dornier DO 728 at the site in Göttingen.