36 Int. J. Vehicle Noise and Vibration, Vol. 5, Nos.

1/2, 2009
Copyright 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x
LMS algorithms applied to vehicle powertrain noise
control
Jie Duan, Mingfeng Li and Teik C. Lim*
Vibro-Acoustics and Sound Quality Research Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Cincinnati,
598 Rhodes Hall,
P.O. Box 210072,
Cincinnati, OH 45221 0072, USA
E-mail: duanjieee02@gmail.com
E-mail: limf@ucmail.uc.edu
E-mail: teik.lim@uc.edu
*Corresponding author
Ming-Ran Lee, F. Wayne Vanhaaften,
Ming-Te Cheng and Takeshi Abe
Powertrain NVH R&D Department,
Research and Advanced Engineering Center,
Ford Motor Company,
Dearborn, MI 48124, USA
E-mail: mlee9@ford.com
E-mail: fvanhaaf@ford.com
E-mail: mcheng1@ford.com
E-mail: tabe1@ford.com
Abstract: Currently, passive noise control treatment is widely applied to treat
vehicle powertrain noise. However, passive noise control technology is often
not effective in the low frequency range where the response is typically the
most dominant component. With the rapid development of digital signal
processing, active noise control (ANC) can be a feasible alternative. In this
study, an enhanced frequency domain filtered-x least mean square (FXLMS)
algorithm is proposed as the basis of an active control system for treating
powertrain interior noise. Compared to the time domain algorithms, the
approach can save computing time especially for long controllers filter length.
Furthermore, unlike traditional ANC techniques for suppressing response, the
proposed frequency domain FXLMS algorithm is targeted at tuning vehicle
interior response in order to achieve a desirable sound quality. Several
frequency domain algorithms are studied numerically by applying the analysis
to treat vehicle interior noise recorded from an actual vehicle.
Keywords: frequency domain; filtered-x; LMS algorithm; noise control;
powertrain.


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 37



Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Duan, J., Li, M., Lim, T.C.,
Lee, M-R., Vanhaaften, F.W., Cheng, M-T. and Abe, T. (2009) Comparative
study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms applied to vehicle
powertrain noise control, Int. J. Vehicle Noise and Vibration, Vol. 5, Nos. 1/2,
pp.3652.
Biographical notes: Jie Duan received a BSc in Electronic Science and
Engineering from Nanjing University, China, in 2006. He is currently pursuing
a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He is a
Student Associate of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. His research
interests include active noise control and adaptive signal processing.
Mingfeng Li is a Research Associate in the Mechanical Engineering
Department at the University of Cincinnati, and a member of ASME and SAE.
His research interest includes acoustics, vibrations and active noise control. He
received a BSc (1994) and MSc (1999) in Acoustics from Nanjing University
and the Institute of Acoustic at Chinese Academy of Sciences, respectively. He
earned an MSc (2002) and a PhD (2005) in Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Alabama and the University of Cincinnati, respectively.
Teik C. Lim is a Professor and Department Head of Mechanical Engineering at
the University of Cincinnati, a member of the Editorial Board for the Int. J.
Vehicle Noise and Vibration and a Fellow of the ASME and SAE. His research
interest is in power transmissions, structural dynamics, vibro-acoustics, sound
quality and active noise control. He has published over 130 technical papers
and advised 25 graduate students. He received his BSc (1985), MSc (1986) and
PhD (1989) in Mechanical Engineering from the Michigan Technological
University, University of Missouri-Rolla and Ohio State University,
respectively.
Ming-Ran Lee is a Technical Expert in Powertrain noise, vibration and
harshness (NVH) at Ford Motor Company. His expertise is in the areas of
powertrain sound quality, intake/exhaust NVH, engine impulsive noise and
active noise control. He has been working for Ford since 1993 in Product
Development, Research and Advanced Engineering. He has a BSc (1984) in
Mechanical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, MSc (1989) in
Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University and PhD
(1993) in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University.
F. Wayne VanHaaften is a Noise and Vibrations Engineer in Powertrain
Development at Ford Motor Company. He has been with Ford since 1996 in
research and advanced engineering, product development and test validation
and development. His primary focus, while at Ford, has been on transmission-
and engine-related NVH development along with active noise control. He
received his BSc (1995) and MSc (2000) in Mechanical Engineering from the
New Mexico State University and Purdue University, respectively.
Ming-Te Cheng is the Advanced Powertrain and Powertrain System NVH
Technical Leader at Ford Motor Company. He graduated from the National
Cheng-Kung University with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering (1985). He
received his MSc and PhD specialising in dynamics and acoustics from the
Iowa State University (1993). Since then, he has been working in the
powertrain NVH area and joined Ford Motor Company at 1998. His primary
area of focus has been the development of advanced powertrain NVH
technologies in hardware, methods, facilities and analysis.
Takeshi Abe is a Henry Ford Technical Fellow in NVH at Ford Motor
Company. His expertise includes Powertrain (i.e. engine, transmission,
driveline and mounting system) NVH-related test/development, CAE/hybrid
engineering methods, innovative test facility/advanced technology development
and pass-by noise (test/simulation methods). He has a BSc and MSc in


38 J. Duan et al.



Mechanical Engineering from Keio University, an MSc in Sound and Vibration
from ISVR, University of Southampton, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering
specialising in Psychoacoustics from Osaka University.
1 Introduction
Vehicle NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) characteristics have always been an
important consideration in automotive design and manufacturing (Harrison, 2004). With
the development of vehicle design, simply reducing the vehicle interior noise is not
enough. Therefore, to satisfy the increasing customer demand for better NVH
performance, automotive engineers are interested in designing vehicles with more
pleasing sound quality. However, the traditional passive noise control technique is
generally not effective for treating low-frequency response and also difficult to perform
structural-acoustic tuning to meet certain sound quality criteria. To address these needs,
an active noise control (ANC) system for tuning sound quality is developed and studied
(Duan et al., 2009; Kuo and Ji, 1995; Kuo and Morgan, 1996; Kuo et al., 1997; Sorosiak
et al., 2008).
In 1997, Kuo proposed a novel ANC system based on the use of frequency domain
algorithm (Kuo et al., 1997). Compared to the conventional time domain technique, this
frequency domain algorithm possesses several advantages. One of advantages is the
significant saving in computational cost because it allows dynamic signal to be processed
block by block, which enables most convolutions and correlations to be performed in
frequency domain via the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). However, this also introduces
block delay into the system due to the inherent data processing technique. Fortunately,
although block delay in general can be a problem, for harmonic control such as
powertrain noise, it is less of a concern as explained later. Furthermore, faster
convergence can be achieved by the frequency domain algorithms as reported in
References (Kuo et al., 2007; Ogue et al., 1983).
In our previous study, the fast least mean square (FLMS) algorithm was successfully
applied to control the powertrain noise (Duan et al., 2009). Compared to the basic version
of the frequency domain LMS (FDLMS) algorithm, the FLMS algorithm is suitable for a
broad range of frequencies (Ferrara, 1985). However, FLMS is much more complex and
consume more computational cost. Mansour and Gray (1982) proposed an unconstrained
frequency domain least mean square (UFLMS) algorithm that is capable of achieving
further computational saving and faster convergence speed. In this article, the
performances of the FLMS and UFLMS algorithms applied to powertrain noise are
studied and their results are compared. In addition, the advantage of frequency domain
algorithm, which is the ability to tune the step size for each frequency bin independently,
is also investigated.
This article is organised as follows. First, the fundamental configuration of the
proposed active powertrain noise control system is presented in Section 2. Second, in
Section 3, the block delay caused by buffer and un-buffer is analysed, and how
computational saving can be achieved is discussed. Finally, in Section 4, the two
frequency domain algorithms are implemented numerically to tune the response of
selected orders of powertrain noise and to match the corresponding sound spectrum with
a predefined set of desired amplitudes. The performances of the different frequency
domain algorithms applied in this study are also compared Section 4.


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 39



2 Frequency domain ANC controllers
2.1 Reference signal
Vehicle powertrain noise is usually dominated by harmonics that are related to the engine
orders. These orders can be derived using the engine crankshaft speed data estimated
from the measured raw tachometer signals. Also, based on the engine speed result, a sine
wave generator can be employed to create the appropriate reference signal expressed
generally as,
1
2
( ) sin
N
i
i
s
i
nf
x n a
f
t
=
| |
=
|
\ .
_
(1)
where
i
a is the amplitude of the ith order,
i
f is the frequency of the ith order, and
s
f is
the sampling rate. With the information contains in the above equation, it is then possible
to target the specific harmonics for either reduction or enhancement.
It is well known that the convergent rate is determined by the power response of the
filtered signal that is generally frequency dependent even if the original reference signal
prior to being filtered by the secondary path model is uniform. This is because the
responses of the secondary path at different frequencies are usually quite different. For a
specific harmonic, the convergent rate depends on the step size and the secondary path
response amplitude at that frequency. To improve the performance of an ANC system,
the convergence has to be nearly the same rate over a broad frequency range. In order to
achieve this condition using the time domain algorithm, the amplitudes of reference
sinusoids are modified according to the following equation (Kuo et al., 1999; Li et al.,
2004)
^
1
i
i
a
h
= (2)
where
^
i
h is the magnitude response of ( ) h z
.
at frequency
i
f . However, in some
applications, modifying the amplitudes of reference sinusoids is not practical. Thus, the
frequency domain algorithm that allows the tuning of step size independently at each
frequency bin can be employed as the alternative. This advantage will be discussed later.
2.2 Frequency domain control system configuration
The structure of simple FDLMS algorithm is illustrated in Reference (Kuo et al., 1997)
and the FLMS algorithm is illustrated in Ferrara (1985). Although the configuration using
FLMS algorithms shows a compromised control effect, the payoff in applying it is a
simplified control structure as well as significant computational saving. Mansour and
Gray (1982) proposed a new frequency domain algorithm named the UFLMS algorithm
that removes two FFT operations per iteration. Since the amount of computations is
limited by the digital signal processing (DSP) hardware, it is important to study the
possibility of the simplified control structure. The main difference between the FLMS
and the UFLMS algorithms is that the UFLMS one removes the gradient constraint
procedure within the dashed rectangle as shown in Figure 1. The theoretical equations are
derived in the ensuing discussion.


40 J. Duan et al.



Figure 1 Basic configuration of the proposed frequency domain active noise control systems
To tune the sound spectrum, the pseudo-error signal defined as the difference between the
primary disturbance ( ) PT n at the error microphone location and the output of secondary
sound ( ) y n from the secondary path can be expressed as
'( ) ( ) ( ) e n e n d n = (3)
where ( ) e n is the residual error signal sensed by the error microphone sensor and ( ) d n is
the desired sound pressure that is synthesised according to a certain pre-determined
vehicle interior sound quality criteria.
The reference signal has to be filtered by the estimated model of the secondary path
to avoid signal path distortion. This is basically the well-known FXLMS algorithm. In
this study, another filter used to compensate the block delay is added to the signal path.
Thus, the filtered reference signal is computed as
'
( ) ( ) * ( ) * ( ) x n x n h z s z
.
=
(4)
where ( ) h z
.
is the estimated model of the secondary path, ( ) s z is the block delay
compensation filter and * is the linear convolution operation. For the 50% overlap


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 41



method where the trailing half of one block of filtered reference signal data overlaps with
a previous block, a new block of pseudo-error signal data padded with N zeros are
accumulated in the buffer separately to yield two vectors with 2N-point signal data,
namely
'
( ) x k and '( ) e k
' ' ' ' '
( ) [ ( ) ( 1) ( ) ( 1)] x k x kN N x kN x kN x kN N = +
(5)
' '
'( ) [0 0 0 ( ) ( 1)] e k e kN e kN N = + (6)
where k is the block index. The above two vectors, ( ) x k and '( ), e k are then transformed
once every N samples by a 2N-point FFT to produce a pair of frequency domain vectors
described by
' ' '
( ) { ( )}, '( ) { ( )} X k FFT x k E k FFT e k = = (7)
Hence, the update strategy for the filter weights is
' '
( 1) ( ) ( ) ( ) W k W k X k E k + = + (8)
Only the last N terms of the 2N-point '( ) y k is used to drive the secondary source as
given by
'
( ) [ ( ) ( 1)] last terms of ( )
T
y k y kN y kN N N y k = + = (9)
where
'
( ) y k is the inverse FFT operation on the output of the frequency domain adaptive
filter that is expressed as
'
'( ) IFFT{ ( )} IFFT{ ( ) ( )} y k Y k X k W k = = (10)
Since ( ) y k is calculated every N samples, where k is the block index, it is important to
note that an un-buffer device is needed to generate the serial signal ( ) y n before driving
the secondary control speaker.
2.3 Variable step size
Usually, the step size is adjusted based on the corresponding power response of the
filtered-x reference signal as (Wu et al., 2008)
2
'
m
m
X

= (11)
where is the normalised step size, indicates the Euclidean norm operator of the
vector, m is the frequency bin index and
'
X is the filtered reference signal. However, the
drawback of this method is that
m
has to be calculated in every iteration. To simplify
this process, the step size is modified in the following equation
2
^
m
m
h

=
| |
|
\ .
(12)


42 J. Duan et al.



The basic idea is similar to equation (2) that normalises the amplitudes of the reference
sinusoids. Accordingly, the equation (8) can be expressed as
' '
( 1) ( ) ( ) ( )
m m m
W k W k X k E k + = + (13)
3 Block delay and complexity analysis
3.1 Block delay analysis
There is a tendency for frequency domain algorithms to add an unwanted delay into
signal path (Morgan and Thi, 1995). That is because the algorithm processes the naturally
a serial data block-by-block, which requires a buffer to structure the data block before the
actual FFT operation. Similarly, the IFFT calculation has to be followed by an un-buffer
process to translate the data block back into a serial one. In doing so, one block delay
will be caused by either the buffer or un-buffer processes. Thus, the filter ( ) D z shown
in Figure 2 is added to the weights update path to compensate for the inherent block
delay. The above Equation (8) that is used to update the adaptive filter weights can be
rewritten as
( 1) ( ) ( ) * ( ( ), ( )) W k W k h k f x k e k
.
+ = + (14)
Figure 2 Comparison of the convergent rates of different frequency domain active control
algorithms
Keys: solid line , simple frequency domain least mean square (FDLMS)
algorithm; dashed line , FLMS algorithm; and dotted line ,
UFLMS algorithm.


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 43



where k is block index, is the step size, ( ) h k
.
is the estimated impulse response of the
secondary path filter ( ), H z
.
f function expresses the total process based on the fast LMS
algorithm by treating ( ) x k and ( ) e k as variables, and the operator * again represents the
convolution. If the block delay is taken into consideration, the update equation becomes
( 1) ( ) ( ) * ( ( 1), ( 1)) W k W k h k f x k e k
.
+ = + (15)
Furthermore, the above equation (11) can be re-expressed as
1 2
( 1) ( ) ( ) * ( ( ) * ( ), ( ) * ( )) W k W k h k f s k x k s k e k
.
+ = + (16)
Here,
1
( ) s k is the estimated impulse response of the block delay caused by the buffer
process in the error signal path, and
2
( ) s k is the estimated impulse response of the block
delay caused by the un-buffer in the output signal path as illustrated in Figure 2.
However, both delayed blocks are equal to one block delay in this analysis. Since the
delay is independent of the FFT or linear convolution for harmonic signals, Equation (16)
can be simplified as
( 1) ( ) '( ) * ( ( ), ( )) W k W k h k f x k e k
.
+ = + (17)
where
1 2
'( ) ( ) * ( ) * ( ). h k h k s k s k
. .
= From Equation (17), it is seen that the block delays can
be compensated by modifying the estimated secondary path filter. In this analysis, only
two block delays are taken into account. Thus, the estimated secondary path transfer
function ( ) h z
.
can be changed into ( ) ( ), h z s z
.
where ( ) s z is impulse response of the 2N
sampling time delay and the symbol * once more refers to the linear convolution.
3.2 Complexity analysis
This section studied the computational cost of the FLMS and UFLMS algorithms as
well as the traditional time domain algorithm using a number of real-valued
multiplications. In our analysis, the frequency domain algorithm shows significant
computational saving compared to the time domain algorithm. The Nth order adaptive
filter, Mth order secondary path filter and N-block size are used in this analysis. For the
traditional time domain algorithm, the total computations of adaptive filter output and
weights update require 2N multiplications. In addition, calculation of the filtered
reference signal is M multiplication. Therefore, to produce N output samples,
total number of multiplications are N(2N+M). In the case of the FLMS algorithm,
the adaptive filter requires four 2N-point FFT and two 2N-point IFFT. Also, the adaptive
filter weights work in complex number form. Thus, the total number of multiplications
per block signals for the FLMS is
2
(12log 8 ) N N M + + (Duan et al., 2009). The UFLMS
algorithm saves additional two FFT operations by removing the gradient constraint.


44 J. Duan et al.



Table 1 Multiplication ratios of the FLMS and UFLMS relative to the conventional time
domain algorithm
Multiplication ratio
Block size
FLMS UFLMS
32 1.0110 0.9560
64 0.8879 0.8318
128 0.7050 0.6547
256 0.4975 0.4581
512 0.3142 0.2870
Therefore,
2
(8log 8 ) N N M + + real-valued multiplications are required for N output
signals, respectively. The ratios of real-valued multiplications required by the FLMS and
UFLMS algorithms relative to the traditional time domain algorithm are, respectively,
given by
2
12log 8
2
N M
N M
+ +
+
(18)
2
8log 8
2
N M
N M
+ +
+
(19)
To further examine the computational costs of the frequency and time domain algorithms,
the following case study is considered. The length of secondary path filter M is 300 in the
proposed system. From the results listed in Table 1, which are computed from the above
two equations, it is clear that the proposed FLMS algorithm will cost less computation
time than the traditional time domain algorithm when the block size is larger than 32.
This is shown by those ratios that are less than the value of 1. When the block size is
equal to 32, the computational costs of these two algorithms are nearly the same. In
addition, the UFLMS algorithm can achieve more computational saving than the FLMS
algorithm because two FFT operations can be further eliminated per iteration.
4 Computer simulation
4.1 Convergent rate
For the time domain algorithm, the step size has to be fixed for all frequencies. Hence,
the selected step size may be optimised for only one harmonic, but not for other
harmonics. In fact, some of the other harmonics may become divergent if the step size is
not suitably selected. This is already shown in our previous study (Duan et al., 2009), and
therefore will not discuss again in this article. Here, the convergence rates of several
different frequency domain algorithms, that are FDLMS, FLMS and UFLMS, will be
analysed below.
The UFLMS algorithm is expected to achieve faster convergence as compared to the
FLMS one. This is because the UFLMS algorithm has smaller eigenvalue spread in the
input autocorrelation matrix. To verify the performance of the UFLMS algorithm,
numerical simulations are performed. Figure 2 shows the comparison of convergent rate
of different frequency domain algorithms, namely FLMS, UFLMS and FDLMS. The


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 45



block size is chosen to be 128 for all three simulations. The primary noise consists of a
single harmonic at 150 Hz mixed in with some white noise. The reference signal is the
same sinusoid of unit amplitude.
As shown in Figure 2, the FDLMS algorithm converges faster as compared to the
others, but its mean square error (MSE) is unacceptable. The reason is because the
FDLMS possesses a circular convolution distortion as discussed above. From these three
curves, the UFLMS algorithm has the greatest potential for use in active control of
powertrain noise. It converges faster than the FLMS one but has less MSE compared to
the FDLMS algorithm. Similar to earlier observation, the first 700 samples do not
converge in all simulations due to the problem of block delay. This appears to imply that
block delay affects the convergence of all frequency domain algorithms.
4.2 Vehicle powertrain noise control
The performance of the proposed active control systems using different frequency
domain algorithms are studied and compared numerically using Matlab/Simulink
(MATLAB/Simulink R2007b). The primary powertrain disturbances along with
tachometer signal were recorded on an actual vehicle. Two cases are studies in this
article. One is a steady-state case when engine speed is set to 3,500 rpm (revolution per
minute). The other one involves the engine speed running up from 1,000 to 3,500 rpm.
A transfer function of the secondary path, which is from the driving signal of the
secondary control speaker to the error microphone location, is synthesised from a fast
numerical model for vehicle interior acoustics (Sorosiak et al., 2008). The secondary path
was modelled using a 256-tap finite impulse response filter ( ) h z
.
for all simulations as
shown in Figure 3. The lengths of frequency domain adaptive filter are N = 128.
Thus, 256-point FFT is applied in the corresponding simulations.
Figure 3 Frequency response function (dB reference to 1.0
3
Pascal Sec / m ) of
the secondary path


46 J. Duan et al.



In the first simulation, the performance difference of the two algorithms (FLMS and
UFLMS) is examined with powertrain noise when the engine is running at constant
speed. For demonstration purpose, the desired signal is designed to reduce the response
of the third order and to enhance the response of fourth order to meet the desired
amplitude. Hanning window is used in the analysis. In these simulations, the last 8,192
samples of pseudo-error signal after reaching convergence is taken as the steady-state
response. The desired value of the 4th order is labelled by the asterisk symbol (*). The
solid curve is the original response of the powertrain noise when the control is off. The
pseudo-error signals when the control is on using the FLMS and UFLMS algorithms are
shown in Figures 4(a) and (b), respectively. As shown in the plot 4(a), the reduction at
the 3rd order is very obvious, that is about 18 dB. Also, the resultant response at the 4th
order is enhanced to the desired level. From these results, it is concluded that the FLMS
algorithm is quite promising for both response attenuation and enhancement. However, in
Figure 4(b), there are some undesired harmonics when the control is turned on. Based on
further investigation, these harmonics came from the output of the adaptive controller, as
shown in Figure 4(c), even although the reference signal is clean. This is because the
UFLMS algorithm removes the gradient constrain, which causes a larger MSE than the
FLMS algorithm. If the control target is attenuation only, the undesired harmonics will be
at the background noise level. In other words, there are no visible unintended harmonics
when the control is on as shown in Figure 4(d).
Figure 4 Active noise control simulation results for a steady-state case using the FLMS and
UFLMS algorithms; (a) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order response and enhance
the 4th order response using FLMS; (b) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order
response and enhance the 4th order response using UFLMS; (c) The objective is to
reduce the 3rd order response and enhance the 4th order response using FLMS and
UFLMS; and (d) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order response only using UFLM


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 47



Figure 4 Active noise control simulation results for a steady-state case using the FLMS and
UFLMS algorithms; (a) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order response and enhance
the 4th order response using FLMS; (b) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order
response and enhance the 4th order response using UFLMS; (c) The objective is to
reduce the 3rd order response and enhance the 4th order response using FLMS and
UFLMS; and (d) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order response only using UFLM
(continued)


48 J. Duan et al.



Figure 4 Active noise control simulation results for a steady-state case using the FLMS and
UFLMS algorithms; (a) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order response and enhance
the 4th order response using FLMS; (b) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order
response and enhance the 4th order response using UFLMS; (c) The objective is to
reduce the 3rd order response and enhance the 4th order response using FLMS and
UFLMS; and (d) The objective is to reduce the 3rd order response only using UFLM
(continued)
Since the UFLMS algorithm has larger MSE as shown in Figure 3, the poor performance
of UFLMS is expected. However, if it is targeted to attenuate the primary noise only, the
UFLMS algorithm is expected to have comparable performance with the FLMS
algorithm.
In the traditional time domain algorithm, the amplitude of the reference signal of each
order is adjusted separately to achieve similar convergent rate for different frequencies.
This method is clearly not as convenient. However, as noted above, the tuning of the
variable step size in the frequency domain algorithm provides an alternative for the
proposed active control system. Furthermore, tuning step size for each frequency bin
according to the magnitude of secondary path estimate can lead to faster overall
convergence rate. In this simulation, the responses of the 3rd and 3.5th orders are chosen
for reduction as much as possible. Since the magnitudes of secondary path function at the
corresponding frequencies are 8 dB difference from each other, the optimal step size at
these two frequencies are expected to be different. In our analysis, the block size for the
frequency domain algorithm is 128 with sampling rate of 4,096. The resultant
convergence time is 2 sec. The frequency domain spectrum of the last 4,096 samples of
error signal is shown in Figures 5 and 6. The step size of fixed step size simulation and
the normalised step size of variable step size simulation are determined experimentally
for each algorithm by finding the largest stable value to achieve largest reduction for the
3rd order. Furthermore, the step size for each frequency bin of the variable step size
simulation is calculated by Equation (12). For the implementation shown in Figure 5,


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 49



which is applied employing the FLMS algorithm, it can be seen that variable step size can
achieve more reduction at the 3.5th order compared to the fixed step size. Since the
convergence time is the same, the results imply that the convergent rate at the frequency
of 3.5th order is improved. As a result, the algorithm can achieve nearly the same
convergent rate at the frequencies corresponding to the 3rd and 3.5th orders. In Figure 6,
the UFLMS algorithm shows similar level of performance.
The last simulation involves the engine crankshaft speed running up. The time
duration for the entire process is 30 sec, during which the speed increases from 1,000 to
3,500 rpm. The goal is to reduce the response of the 3rd order. Thus, the control
frequency range is from 50 to 175 Hz. Figure 7 shows the simulation results using the
FLMS algorithm, while Figure 8 shows the results using the UFLMS algorithm. The
black curves in Figures 7 and 8 are the original response of the measured powertrain
noise. The dashed curves and dotted are the sound pressure response after the controller
is switched on using fixed and variable step sizes, respectively. It is noted that the
variable step size has better performance at the lower engine speed around 1,700 rpm
and higher engine speed around 3,400 rpm. The corresponding frequencies are 85 and
170 Hz, respectively. That is because the magnitudes of secondary path at these
frequencies, as shown in Figure 2, are smaller than the responses at the frequencies of the
middle engine speeds around 2,500 rpm, that corresponds to around 125 Hz. Thus,
different step sizes are need for these various frequency ranges to achieve faster
convergence. This simulation also verifies that the FLMS and UFLMS algorithms have
comparable performance ability to achieve the desired attenuation.
Figure 5 Active noise control simulation results for a steady-state case using the FLMS
algorithm. The objective is to reduce the 3rd and 3.5th order responses
Keys: solid line , baseline noise response; dashed line , fixed step size;
and dotted line , variable step size.


50 J. Duan et al.



Figure 6 Active noise control simulation results for a steady-state case using the UFLMS
algorithm. The objective is to reduce the 3rd and the 3.5th order responses
Keys: solid line , baseline noise response; dashed line , fixed step size;
and dotted line , variable step size.
Figure 7 Active control result for engine speed run-up case using FLMS algorithm. The objective
is to reduce the 3rd order response
Keys: solid line , baseline noise response; dashed line , fixed step size;
and dotted line , variable step size.


Comparative study of frequency domain filtered-x LMS algorithms 51



Figure 8 Active control result for engine speed run-up case using UFLMS algorithm. The
objective is to reduce the 3rd order response
Keys: solid line , baseline noise response; dashed line , fixed step size;
and dotted line , variable step size.
5 Conclusion
The active control systems equipped with two different frequency domain algorithms,
namely the FLMS and UFLMS algorithms, for tuning the vehicle powertrain noise
spectrum have been implemented, analysed and compared. Numerical case studies were
conducted for both constant and run-up engine speed conditions. Calculation results show
that the proposed active control system can provide faster overall convergent rate by
tuning the step sizes of the algorithm, and also save computation cost by adopting the
FFT operation. Simulation results show that when we attempt to achieve both attenuation
and enhancement operations simultaneously, the FLMS algorithm performs better than
the UFLMS one. However, if the objective is only to attenuate the primary noise
response, both algorithms can accomplish comparable level of noise reduction. Finally, it
may also be noted that the computational savings achieved by the UFLMS algorithm is
more than that of the FLMS one.
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