Active Acoustic Windows: Towards a Quieter Home

Environmental noise (also known as noise pollution) is a prevalent feature of any urban soundscape. Of the numerous environmental noise sources (e.g., aircrafts, road traffic, railways, industries, and construction), the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified road traffic noise as one of the main contributors to urban noise pollution. Passive noise control (PNC) methods, where physical media are used to “shield” a listener from noise sources. Even though PNC methods are effective at damping noise over a large frequency range, they are less effective at the lower frequencies due to the thickness of media required. Therefore, active noise control (ANC) methods may hold the key to a practical noise mitigation solution for protecting the health of an ever-increasing urban population. ANC methods have been shown to be more spaceand cost-effective at attenuating low frequencies and are becoming increasingly realizable due to the recent development of efficient algorithms and powerful lowcost processors. Moreover, an ANC system retrofitted to open-windows may potentially attenuate low-frequency traffic noise while still allowing natural ventilation.