Multichannel feedforward active noise control system combined with noise source separation by microphone arrays

Abstract In this paper, we propose a multichannel active noise control (ANC) system combined with noise source separation by microphone arrays. A multichannel feedforward ANC system uses multiple reference microphones located close to noise sources and can reduce various acoustic noises such as broadband noise. In general, it is difficult to place the reference microphones close to the noise sources owing to physical constraints. In this case, the reference signals, which are the outputs of reference microphones, are highly correlated with each other, the noise reduction performance of the multichannel ANC system is degraded. In other words, the reference microphones detect the highly correlated noises, reducing the noise reduction ability of the ANC system. To solve this problem, a multichannel feedforward ANC system with a noise source separation technique is proposed. This system uses microphone arrays located at the reference microphone positions. The mixed signal is separated from the target noise and other components by noise source separation and the separated signals are used to update the noise control filters. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed ANC system can separate the target noise and the disturbance noise and effectively reduce the target noise.