Active noise cancellation, Part 1:

Concept and principles

By

Electrical noise, whether due to internal circuit external signal sources, is an

ever-present factor which ripples through many aspects of the engineerʼs
design challenge. But there is another kind of noise – namely audio/
acoustic noise – which affects consumers and the individuals, and whose
affect engineers are striving to reduce. This noise can affect those using a
headset or earbuds (call them “earpieces”, or it can also affect “open areas”
such as the cabin of a car or airplane. To counter this noise, an approach
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) has been devised and greatly enhanced.
Note that the term “cancellation”” is somewhat optimistic as the noise is
never canceled completely, but it is reduced significantly. Therefore, some
prefer the term Active Noise Reduction (ANR), but the ANC designation
seems to get greater use, perhaps to marketing pressures.

Q: What is the objective of an ANC system?

A: The goal is to have some sort of embedded system adjunct which adds
minimally to cost, weight, and power consumption, yet counteracts any
undesired ambient acoustic noise which affects the ability to hear desired
sounds coming to the ear, or simply annoys the user. Note that this is not
the same as reducing the noise at the source, which is often impractical or
impossible. Instead, the intention is to reduce the noise as perceived by the
listener This counteraction can come directly via earpiece, or as part of the
general ambiance of a situation (room, cabin)

Q: What situations need ANC?

A: Many do. Anyone using a smartphone in a noisy area, sitting in an

airplane with its constant background noise-drone sound, people trying to
do a conference call using a desktop speakerphone, a car which has engine
and road noise (although has been great progress in this last area due to
improved mechanical design and soundproofing, but that has reached its
limit).

Q: Before we go “active”, isnʼt there a passive solution? In general,

passive approaches are simpler, more reliable, and less costly.

A: There are passive approaches, but they simply donʼt work well enough.
The best-known passive approach is for microphones (mike)in some
applications, where the mike has holes in the front for the personʼs voice,
plus holes in the back. The idea is that the further-away outside noise
(wind, traffic) reaches the front and back of the mikeʼs sound element
which transforms the impinging sound energy into electrical signals. This
passive system is inexpensive, of course, but works poorly for many
reasons, such as: the front and back receiving different noises and
intensities (wind, for example, can whip very differently around the mike
bodyʼs front and back.

Another passive approach is to use headphones which seal tightly against

the userʼs head, and this provides some relief. In fact, good passive design
is needed in most ANC designs to eliminate as much noise “up-front” as
possible, before the ANC adds additional noise cancellation, In other words,
donʼt expect an ANC to fully overcome a poor seal around the headphones
or earbuds.

Q: Then what is an active system?

A: The active-system solution is obvious, at least in principle: use a

microphone to “capture” the outside noise (whether from people speaking
nearby, or the more-general noise in a car or airplaneʼs cabin), then invert
this noise signal (call it antinoise) and add it to the overall audio signal,
Figure 1. Then, in theory, the original noise and this antinoise will cancel
out. If the desired signal is going to a headset or earbud, the antinoise be
simply added electronically (it takes just one op amp) to the incoming
signal; if the offending noise is part of the surroundings where people are
not wearing earpieces (passengers on an airplane, for example), then use
the antinoise to drive loudspeakers. Again, in principle, this can be done
with all-analog circuitry, and in fact early attempts at noise cancellation
used that approach, beginning in the 1930s.

Fig 1: The basic noise-cancellation concept is simple: capture the noise using a microphone,
invert it, add it to the original sound signal plus that noise, and all that will remain is the
desired signal (or silence, if that is the signal). (Image source: David Clark Company)

Q: But whatʼs the reality?

A: Before getting into real-world implementation details, consider a few

points:

—the sound-collecting microphone and the sound-reproducing

headphone/earbud or loudspeakers (transducers) are not in the same
location, so what the microphone picks up is not exactly what the
transducers need to generate their antinoise Even a slight positional
difference between the two can make a big difference;

—if the ANC system has a signal delay of more than even a few
milliseconds, it will be trying to cancel “previous” rather than immediate,
current noise, and so may actually make things worse, as it is trying to
correct the past. (Itʼs like speaking when you can only hear your voice a few
milliseconds later — a popular lab experiment — even a 15-20 msec delay is
not only unnerving but makes it almost impossible to talk properly.)

—if the ANC system feeding a headset or earbud, the path of the cornered
signal is fairly direct, known, and relatively fixed, as it goes from the
electronics right into the earpiece. But if the ANC system must use
loudspeakers to create the anti-noise, you have issues of balancing
noise/antinoise volume, speaker location and paths that the antinoise
energy, it is a less-direct environment and needs amplifiers and speakers
with their cost, wright, and size, but it still can be done, Figure 2. Further,
any movement in the area, such as due to people or equipment, means the
sound environment is not constant, so the antinoise creation process is
much more complicated. For this reason, area ANC is a much tougher
proposition than earpiece ANC.

Fig 2: Active noise cancelation can be used, with limited success, to cancel some of the
noise form a carʼs exhaust system, but it is a harsh environment which requires extra
amplifiers and loudspeakers. (Image Source: https://slideplayer.com/slide/2272943/)

Q: Does all this mean that ANC systems donʼt work well and that they
are really mostly marketing hype?

A: Perhaps that was the case a few years ago, but with todayʼs high-speed
processing and improved algorithms, an ANC can be quite good, especially
if it is a direct-to-ear design. Noise reduction of 30 – 40 dB and more is
possible, depending on the offending noise frequency (usually about 200
Hz to several kHz) and type.

Part 2 of the FAQ will look at the ways in which a high-performance ANC
can be implemented and how it deals with the real-world issues.

References

“Noise Control for Internal Combustion Engine Exhaust”

The David Clark Company, “How Does Hybrid Electronic Noise Cancellation
Work?”
Sony Corp, “The Science Of Sonyʼs Digital Noise Canceling”
Cirrus Logic, “Low Power Smart Codec with Active Noise Cancellation and
Echo Cancellation”
Active noise cancellation, Part 2:
Implementation
August 13, 2018 By Bill Schweber

Part 1 of this FAQ looked at the basic concept of active noise cancellation,
how it might be implemented in principle using analog circuitry, and the
harsh reality of actually providing the ANC function. Part 2 looks at modern
ANC systems and how they function, as well as their practical issues.

Q: Is ANC using digital circuits and components simply an issue of

digitizing the microphone signal, inverting it numerically, adding it to
the original signal (also numerically), then converting back to analog to
driver an earpiece (or, in the case of wide-area ANC, using the inverted
signal to drive speakers?

A: Yes, but thatʼs only step 1. There are actually three techniques for ANC:
1) feed-forward cancellation, 2) feedback cancellation, and 3) hybrid
cancellation. All require that the microphone signal be digitized to allow
DSP-based algorithms to be executed on the microphoneʼs digitized signal,
Figure 1.
Fig 1: The basic digital ANC system relies extensively on algorithms which invert (often
called phase reversal) the offending signal in real time, while also compensating for other
system, noise, and sound issues, delays, and artifacts. (Image source: SONY)

If the noise signals that need to be canceled were simply played back after
phase reversal, oscillation will occur at relatively high frequencies because
of delays in phase reversal as the sound moves along the path from
microphone to noise canceling circuit to driver unit to air and finally to audio
output. To prevent this phenomenon known as “howling”, it is necessary to
use a filter circuit to eliminate the high frequencies that trigger oscillation.

Q: Whatʼs feed-forward cancellation?

A: In feed-forward ANC, a reference microphone is placed outside the
headset to capture the noise signal, inverts it, and then adds it to the audio
to provide cancellation; this is all done digitally, of course. Although this
sounds simple, it is not, because the inversion must also account for the
path traveled by the noise, then determine (calculate) the anti-noise signal
before the correct noise goes from the microphone and reaches the
eardrum. Do the math: with the speed of sound at 343 meter/sec (dry air,
20°C), that isnʼt much time. While there would be more time if the
microphone were placed further from the ear, the noise that the
microphone picks up might then differ differently from the noise which is
actually reaching the eardrum.

Q: What about feedback ANC?

A: In this approach, an “error” microphone is located inside of the headset

or earbud, so it monitors the sound going to the userʼs ear. The system then
compares the sound in the userʼs ear to the audio source, while a feedback
algorithm identifies the noise and generates anti-noise to cancel it out.
Despite the attractiveness of this approach, it is very hard to design an
effective feedback system with filters that work across the many variations
in ears and noise; also, the system can become unstable if the feedback is
not “just right”— which will be the case under many circumstances.

Q: Then a hybrid system does what?

A: A hybrid feed-forward/feedback ANC solution combines the virtues of

feedforward and feedback approaches, Figure 2. It has the external
microphone of the feedforward system to monitor ambient noise, plus the
internal microphone to monitor what the user hears beyond audio playback.
With the right algorithms and filtering, this combination can be very
effective.
Fig 2: A hybrid ANC relies on two microphones, one inside the ear cup and the other outside,
to provide both feedforward and feedback signals to the algorithms for superior
performance. (Image Source: Cirrus Logic)

Q: What does it take to provide an effective ANC system when using

the hybrid approach?

First is the use of dynamically adjustable filtering, If the filer – even a digital
one — has fixed coefficients, then it will be suboptimum in many cases,
especially as the user moves or the type of noise varies (airplane, office,
conversation, music, car: are all very different). Now, the latest generation
of ANC systems use sophisticated, self-adjusting dynamically adaptive
algorithms which change the filter parameters “on the fly” to provide the
best performance.

Second, the most advanced ANC systems use multiple microphones. By

using two, three, or even four, the ANC system cab better “hear” the noise
and better adapt to canceling it, and can even deal with noise which
changes source locations such as when someone nearby is walking and
talking. Of course, a dynamic, smart ANC has a higher cost in components
and software commitment but can significantly improve performance.
Despite its additional cost, it is being used in conference room phones and
even smartphones.

Q: If I need ANC, do I have to build my own system?

A: Absolutely not. In fact, IC vendors offer ultra-tiny ICs and chipsets which
are specially designed for ANC headset and earbud applications, For
example, Cirrus Logic, Sony, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Maxim,
and ams offer different ANC ICs, including some which implement the
hybrid approach.

Q: Who is using these latest ANC-based end products?

A: Travelers, pilots, industrial workers, and workers in noisy offices are

among the users.

Q: What about ANC in open areas such as cars and aircraft cabins?

A: This is a difficult problem since it includes a physical environment with

more unknowns and less control than provided by a closed environment of
a headset or earbuds. Still, it is being tested in some cars using the carʼs
speakers, to generate a viable antinoise field to cut down inside power-train
and outside road noise.

Note that a somewhat similar idea has already been used for canceling
unwanted internal light reflections at lens/air, and lens/lens interfaces, using
destructive interference — a sort of antinoise — created by precision thin-
film coatings on the lens surfaces optical systems and cameras; this results
in a “purplish” haze you can see if you look at the lens from just the right
angle.

This FAQ has looked at implementation of a long-sought function of audio

noise cancellation, first discussed almost a hundred years ago, long before
the needed technology existed. Doing cancellation of sound was impossible
until the availability of tiny microphones, digitized audio signals, and high-
speed DSP algorithms, especially when coupled with adaptive filtering.

References

“Noise Control for Internal Combustion Engine Exhaust”

The David Clark Company, “How Does Hybrid Electronic Noise Cancellation
Work?”
Sony Corp, “The Science Of Sonyʼs Digital Noise Canceling”
Cirrus Logic, “Low Power Smart Codec with Active Noise Cancellation and
Echo Cancellation”