Creating an Active Noise Control System Using NI LabVIEW, CompactRIO, and NI CompactDAQ

"Using NI software and hardware, we designed and built a low-cost, high-performance flexible active noise control system. With this versatile system, we can conduct various experiments to test different algorithms without recoding or reconfiguration of the system."
- Wang Liang , Nanyang Technology University

The Challenge:
Developing a flexible active noise control system with accurate signal acquisition, generation, and synchronization as well as powerful real-time signal processing.

The Solution:
Figure 1: System Hardware Setup Using NI CompactRIO, NI CompactDAQ, and NI LabVIEW software to design a flexible test system based on a desktop or notebook PC to perform various active noise control experiments.

Author(s): Wang Liang - Nanyang Technology University Gan Woon Seng - Nanyang Technological University Chua Chong Hua - Nanyang Technological University Active noise control (ANC) systems based on the principle of superposition have evolved and developed in many applications to cancel undesirable noise. ANC involves destructive interference between the primary (undesired) noise from the noise source and a generated anti-noise of equal amplitude and opposite phase to the primary noise. The efficiency of the ANC depends on the accuracy of the amplitude and phase of the anti-noise. Creating a single ANC system to test different ANC algorithms and setups is a challenging task. Generally, ANC systems require both high processing power and crucial delay and synchronization constraints. Our research investigates many algorithms and setups. To cater to all combinations with cost and time-consuming limitations, we chose National Instruments software and hardware as the optimal solution for our application.

Conventional Solution Limitations

Before adopting a PC-based NI setup, we built an active noise control system based on a DSP board. For different algorithms and audio peripherals setup, we code different sets of programs. Coding takes longer compared to the LabVIEW programming approach. The setting for the peripheral synchronization and delay is another big challenge for the ANC system. Furthermore, this setup limits the number of audio channels and processing power.

NI Solution Benefits
For our research, we conducted various experiments based on different algorithms, variations, and settings. To achieve this objective, the solution must be flexible and easily adapted to different hardware and software setups. With the NI solution, we can program and reuse our code for different setups. We can expand the number of channels using the same NI platform. The synchronization and timing on NI cards successfully meets the crucial time delay requirements for real-time ANC systems. With an NI CompactDAQ chassis, CompactRIO modules, and a laptop computer, the system can be a portable solution for testing and experiments in various situations, for example, in an automobile cabin. More important, with this platform, we can perform different tests and experiments based on different algorithms and modify them on the site. We can also implement different setups on the same NI PC-based platform. For different algorithms, we can reuse many shared programming modules. We can use the same platform in future projects as well. This reusability cuts the costs for both short-term and long-term projects.

Hardware System Architecture

The experimental setup in Figure 1 exemplifies a small enclosed area, with approximate dimensions of 2.80 m by 0.95 m by 1.18 m. We glued sound absorbing foam around the walls and ceiling of the enclosed area. Inside the enclosed area is an upholstered seat occupied by a supported model head. Both the error and reference microphones are connected to an NI PCI-4472 signal acquisition board that converts acoustic noises acquired from the microphones to digital signals. In addition, the PCI-4472 analog input card supplies 4 mV excitation voltage to power the PCB-130D20 microphone. After LabVIEW performs the processing, the control signal is generated and sent to an NI CompactDAQ chassis containing an NI 9263 CompactRIO analog output module. The NI 9263 module converts the control signal to anti-noise through digital-to-analog conversion and sends it to a loud speaker.

Software System Architecture

With LabVIEW, we easily reused and adapted codes for different algorithms and different setups. All the programs are coded in LabVIEW. However, LabVIEW gave us the flexibility to use other programs as well, so researchers can port their code from other programming languages. DAQassist in LabVIEW is particularly useful for interfacing with hardware, which would be challenging with different setups. Modular programming makes coding and later reuse easier. We programmed a few subVIs, each handling a certain processing task. Error signal and reference signal sensed by the error microphone and reference microphone respectively are fed into the FXLMS subVI. In the FXLMS subVI, the coefficients of the offline secondary path filter are also extracted from the filter coefficients data file. Based on the information provided by error and reference signals as well as the coefficients of the offline secondary path filter, the control signal is computed as an output of the FXLMS subVI. This control signal is transmitted to the secondary loud speaker as anti-noise. The high-level, user-friendly graphical interface (see Figure 2) makes system control easy and interactive.

Performing Experiments and Data Collection

We performed various experiments using LabVIEW and NI hardware to simulate a flexible ANC system for the control of engine noise in an automobile cabin. With this system, we can select different engine noise harmonics based on different engine noise profiles. The adaptive system processes the signal in real time with updates from the NI I/O modules. The graphical interface on the PC integrates the parameter selections and results display. We can easily modify all the parameters for the experiments to suit different setups. For instance, users can set the sampling frequency, step size, and number of adaptive filter weights. Furthermore, for different hardware setups, the hardware configurations including microphone excitation voltage and loud speaker sensitivity can be set without using the graphical interface. We can display the waveform of the error signal collected by the error microphone display in real time. We can also save the data to data files and easily compare results from different experiments.

Conclusion

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Using NI software and hardware, we designed and built a low-cost, high-performance flexible active noise control system. With this versatile system, we can conduct various experiments to test different algorithms without recoding or reconfiguration of the system. The portability of the system means we can conduct these experiments in different locations. The flexibility of the solution gives us the ease to further development the multichannel ANC system and active noise equalizer (ANE) systems. Author Information: Wang Liang Nanyang Technology University 50 Nanyang Avenue, S2-B4-3 DSP Lab Singapore Tel: 67906901 wang0136@ntu.edu.sg

Figure 1: System Hardware Setup

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Figure 2: Software Graphical Interface

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