Vibrating plates have been recently used for a number of active noise control applications. They are resistant to difficult environmental conditions including dust, humidity, and even precipitation. However, their properties significantly depend on temperature. The plate temperature changes, caused by ambient temperature changes or plate heating due to internal friction, result in varying response of the plate, and may make it significantly different than response of a fixed model. Such mismatch may deteriorate performance of an active noise control system or even lead to divergence of a model-based adaptation algorithm.

In this paper effects of vibrating plate temperature variation on a feedforward adaptive active noise reduction system with the multichannel Filtered-reference LMS algorithm are examined. For that purpose, a thin aluminum plate is excited with multiple Macro-Fiber Composite actuators. The plate temperature is forced by a set of Peltier cells, what allows for both cooling and heating the plate. The noise is generated at one side of the plate, and a major part of it is transmitted through the plate. The goal of the control system is to reduce sound pressure level at a specified area on the other side of the plate.

To guarantee successful operation of the control system in face of plate temperature variation, a gain-scheduling scheme is proposed to support the Filtered-reference LMS algorithm.

The active noise-reducing casing developed and promoted by the authors in recent publications have multiple advantages over other active noise control methods. When compared to classical solutions, it allows for obtaining global reduction of noise generated by a device enclosed in the casing. Moreover, the system does not require loudspeakers, and much smaller actuators attached to the casing walls are used instead. In turn, when compared to passive casings, the walls can be made thinner, lighter and with much better thermal transfer than sound-absorbing materials. For active noise control a feedforward structure is usually used. However, it requires an in-advance reference signal, which can be difficult to be acquired for some applications. Fortunately, usually the dominant noise components are due to rotational operations of the enclosed device parts, and thus they are tonal and multitonal. Therefore, it can be adequately predicted and the Internal Model Control structure can be used to benefit from algorithms well developed for feedforward systems. The authors have already tested that approach for a rigid casing, where interaction of the walls was significantly reduced. In this paper the idea is further explored and applied for a light-weight casing, more frequently met in practice, where each vibrating wall of the casing influences all the other walls. The system is verified in laboratory experiments.

Active Noise Control (ANC) of noise transmitted through a vibrating plate causes many problems not observed in classical ANC using loudspeakers. They are mainly due to vibrations of a not ideally clamped plate and use of nonlinear actuators, like MFC patches. In case of noise transmission though a plate, nonlinerities exist in both primary and secondary paths. Existence of nonlinerities in the system may degrade performance of a linear feedforward control system usually used for ANC. The performance degradation is especially visible for simple deterministic noise, such as tonal noise, where very high reduction is expected. Linear feedforward systems in such cases are unable to cope with higher harmonics generated by the nonlinearities. Moreover, nonlinearities, if not properly tackled with, may cause divergence of an adaptive control system. In this paper a feedforward ANC system reducing sound transmitted through a vibrating plate is presented. The ANC system uses nonlinear control filters to suppress negative effects of nonlinearies in the system. Filtered-error LMS algorithm, found more suitable than usually used Filtered-reference LMS algorithm, is employed for updating parameters of the nonlinear filters. The control system is experimentally verified and obtained results are discussed.

Vibrating plates can be used in Active Noise Control (ANC) applications as active barriers or as secondary sources replacing classical loudspeakers. The system with vibrating plates, especially when nonlinear MFC actuators are used, is nonlinear. The nonlinearity in the system reduces performance of classical feedforward ANC with linear control filters systems, because they cannot cope with harmonics generated by the nonlinearity. The performance of the ANC system can be improved by using nonlinear control filters, such as Artificial Neural Networks or Volterra filters. However, when multiple actuators are mounted on a single plate, which is a common practice to provide effective control of more vibration modes, each actuator should be driven by a dedicated nonlinear control filter. This significantly increases computational complexity of the control algorithm, because adaptation of nonlinear control filters is much more computationally demanding than adaptation of linear FIR filters. This paper presents an ANC system with multiple actuators, which are driven with a single nonlinear filter. To avoid destructive interference of vibrations generated by different actuators the control signal is filtered by appropriate separate linear filters. The control system is experimentally verified and obtained results are reported.

Nowadays, noise generated by devices is a serious issue in industry and in everyday life, because it may cause health damage to humans. In this research, a cubic rigid device casing built of double-panel thin steel walls is employed to reduce noise emitted from an enclosed noise source. Double-panel structure is used because of good sound insulation it provides. There exist three main groups of noise reduction methods, i.e. passive, semi-active and active. In this paper, a semi-active modification of double-panel structure is applied and examined. The bistable actuator (solenoid) mounted between incident and radiating plates changes its state due to applied constant voltage, causing the coupling of plates. Experimentally measured natural frequencies and modeshapes of the structure are compared to the simulation results. The influence of proposed modification on dynamical properties of the structure is analyzed and discussed.

Passive noise reduction methods require thick and heavy barriers to be effective for low frequencies and those clasical ones are thus not suitable for reduction of low frequency noise generated by devices. Active noise-cancelling casings, where casing walls vibrations are actively controlled, are an interesting alternative that can provide much higher low-frequency noise reduction. Such systems, compared to classical ANC systems, can provide not only local, but also global noise reduction, which is highly expected for most applications. For effective control of casing vibrations a large number of actuators is required. Additionally, a high number of error sensors, usually microphones that measure noise emission from the device, is also required. All actuators have an effect on all error sensors, and the control system must take into account all paths, from each actuator to each error sensor. The Multiple Error FXLMS has very high computational requirements. To reduce it a Switched-Error FXLMS, where only one error signal is used at the given time, have been proposed. This, however, significantly reduces convergence rate. In this paper an algorithm that uses multiple errors at once, but not all, is proposed. The performance of various algorithm variants is compared using simulations with the models obtained from real active-noise cancelling casing.

Thin plates, in the form of individual panels or whole device casings, often separate the noise source from its recipients. It would be very desirable if the panels could effectively block the sound transmission preventing noise from further propagation. This is especially challenging to achieve at low frequencies. A promising approach, intensively developed in the recent years, is to employ active control methods by adding sensors and actuators, and running a control algorithm. However, if the noise is narrow-band, an alternative passive solution originally developed by the authors can be applied. It is based on appropriately located passive elements which can be used to alter the frequency response of the vibrating structure thus improving its sound insulation properties. Such an approach is referred to as the frequency response shaping method. The purpose of this paper is to further develop this method and apply it to a device casing panel. The efficiency of the method is evaluated by simulation and real experiments. Appropriate cost functions and mathematical models are formulated and used to optimise the arrangement of passive elements mounted to the plate, enhancing its sound insulation properties at the given frequency range. The results are reported, and advantages and limits of the method are pointed out and discussed.