The first stage of the homogenisation process was conducted to reach comprehensiveness. This process led to a top-level structure made of three main groups (level 1) and a total of eight blocks of roadmap subsets (level 2). These top-level roadmap subsets were split into contributors – domains of intervention that could directly partake in reducing perceived noise and enablers, which are instrumental to this objective.

It is worth noting that ‘societal’ blocks dealing with (4) airport noise management & indicators and (5) impact understanding were introduced and defined at this stage as the second main group of contributors – Management of Noise Impact.

Once a high-level structure was defined, a further detailing of each subset was required. To this end, two additional levels of granularity were added: topics (level 3) and sub-topics (level 4). For instance, the more refined structure of the blocks dedicated to (1) Technology Development is shown below. The complete collection of subsets and topics can be viewed and downloaded here (PDF).

^{Topics (the main subject of each column) and Sub-topics (bullet points) of the subset dedicated to Technology Development}

For each subtopic, several attributes have been defined:

Each roadmap subset was initially developed by a dedicated team – relevant experts from the ANIMA partners. These initial roadmaps were reviewed and validated by several committees organised by ANIMA and experts from both inside and outside the project (the European Research Network Community). Various workshops and exchanges of knowledge within this community allowed ANIMA to take steps towards distributed propulsion or acoustic integration of unconventional propulsion systems.

A new roadmap structure has been developed by regrouping the topics into several subsets, divided into contributors and enablers and defining new topics and subtopics per each subset in a single format.

However, further harmonisation required the extension of the well-known Technology Readiness Level (TRL), which is traditionally used by engineers, towards the “societal” subsets of (4) Airport noise management and (5) Impact understanding.

Considering that the roadmaps should be understandable by a wider audience, a visual scale was designed to help end-users understand which level of maturity was reached.

In this regard, a seven-level scale was issued in analogy with the traditional TRLs for technology roadmaps.

^{Generic description of harmonised maturity scale}

Once the generic description was agreed upon, a scale definition was developed for each subset (PDF). The existing societal and knowledge readiness levels were evaluated and used to establish a dedicated scale for each subset for the impact-related subsets.

After elaborating and validating the initial version of the Common Roadmap for Research on Aviation Noise Reduction, an update process was started. This process is updated with the ongoing EU and national projects, which contribute to the roadmap with their latest findings. In addition to this, a specific ANIMA task is contributing to upgrading the roadmaps. This task defines and assesses scenarios that simulate the introduction of new technologies and noise management practices envisaged to be implemented in operational settings for the mid- to long-term (2035 to 2050, respectively) on several selected airports.

These simulations will provide an overview of the effect of the planned research and its potential to lead to the target of achieving 24/7 operations while respecting environmental constraints.

The goal of this scenario’s assessment is to identify changes in the noise impact around airports produced by variations in in-flight procedures, noise reduction technology solutions or by other improvements within the framework of the ICAO Balanced Approach.

To that end, ANIMA provides a toolset that allows simulating such scenarios around airports and modifying the operational state of the specific airport (i.e. the number of operations of each aircraft, track or profile combination, and the operations' time). It can also be combined with the ‘receiver state’ of the areas around the airport (population, distribution and sensitivity to noise of a specific zone, including a dose-response relationship). The tool, therefore, allows checking the real impact of a new operational state (for instance, new tracks, new propulsion and/or aircraft concepts) as well as a new receiver state (changes in land-use planning, curfews, time shift).

The evaluated scenarios are expected to inform the final version roadmap, which will be available by the end of the project, on the potential reduction of noise impact achievable with the relevant topics and subtopics of the roadmap subsets. This may contribute to the prioritisation of the most promising solutions.