Recent applications and challenges on active noise control

Acoustic noise problems become more and more serious with increasing use of industrial and medical equipment, appliances, and consumer electronics. Active noise control (ANC) has been studied to solve such acoustic noise problems. ANC is a technique based on the principle of superposition, i.e., an antinoise with the same amplitude and opposite phase is generated and combined with an unwanted noise, thus resulting in the cancellation of both noises. However, ANC is still not widely used owing to the effectiveness of control algorithms, and to the physical and economical constraints of practical applications. In this paper, we briefly introduce some fundamental ANC structures, and focus on recent advances on signal processing algorithms, implementation techniques, challenges for innovative applications, and open issues for further research and development of ANC systems.