Remotely controlled laboratory setup for Active Noise Control and acoustic experiments

This paper presents a remotely controlled educational experiments setup for Active Noise Control (ANC) and acoustic experiments. The experiments setup is based on the Virtual Instruments Systems in Reality (VISIR) open source platform, National Instruments LabVIEW software and a Digital Signal Processor TMS320C6713 from Texas Instruments. The software development and equipment are controlled remotely form a client PC using a standard web browser. The proposed laboratory setup focuses on ANC experiments applied to noise in a ventilation duct. The laboratory setup will enable students to test and investigate properties and behaviour of adaptive algorithms in reality as compared to more confined simulations usually carried out in Matlab etc. The general steps in ANC, such as the feasibility of active control, designing, testing and debugging ANC algorithms, configuration and implementation of an active control system, are all covered. In addition students will be able to study the effect of analog to digital converters (ADC), anti-aliasing filters, digital to analog converters (DAC) and reconstruction filters using digital signal processing in reality, etc. The laboratory setup is suitable for a wide range of courses such as sound related experiments in upper secondary school physics, digital signal processing, adaptive signal processing, and acoustics at university level.