Active cancellation of acoustic noise using a self-tuned filter

In an increasingly noisy society, methods of reducing noise are becoming more important. This work proposes an analog electroacoustic circuit for active control of narrow-band low-frequency acoustic noise using adaptive filtering techniques. The circuit aims at producing antinoise, which is acoustically added to the disturbing noise to produce an error signal that is fed back to the circuit. The proposed circuit is a modified Kerwin-Huelsman-Newcomb biquad filter that tunes itself to the incoming noise frequency using the zero tuning techniques. The circuit was implemented on a printed circuit board and it was successful in reducing noise by 15-20 dB in open space. Active noise control specifically for narrow-band noise cancellation using adaptive analog filters seems to be a better solution than its digital signal processing counterpart in speed, cost, and robustness.