Hardware-in-loop Simulation of Active Noise Control in Car Cabins

HOU Chenyuan PENGWei JIN Xiaoxiong

Automobile College of Tongji University Shanghai, China hcy31311@163.com

HUA Chunlei
Automotive Technology & Research Centre Tianjin, China

LIN Yuhui
SAIC Motor Corporation Ltd. Shanghai, China

Abstract-A system of active noise control(ANC) in car cabins was established according to the ANC theory. In the xPC environment of MATLAB/RTW, a hardware-in-loop simulation platform was designed including the ANC controller model, software and hardware. Based on the platform, the optimal position of secondary sound source was decided and then a simulation was made on an actual car. The ANC effect was analyzed in both time-domain and frequency-domain, and the tracking performance of ANC system was also analyzed. The analysis result shows the established system of ANC is effect to reduce the low-frequency noise in car cabins. Keywords-active noise control; ANC; low-frequeny; hardwarein-loop simulation; xPC;

II.

THE DESIGN OF ACTIVE NOISE CONTROL SYSTEM IN CAR CABINS

I.

INTRODUCTION

The noise level inside the car has become an important indicator that evaluates the comfort of a car. The traditional methods for noise control, such as sound absorption, sound insulation and using mufflers, have a better effect on the highfrequency noise control, but an obvious disadvantage in the low-frequency noise control. As an effective means of lowfrequency noise control, ANC(active noise control) has become the research focus in automotive NVH field [1]. According to the theory of ANC, a single-channel selfadaptive feedforward digital controller was chosen to establish a system of ANC in car cabins. Firstly, the ANC effect was analyzed with software simulation. Secondly, based on the xPC target environment in the MATLAB\RTW(Real-Time Workshop), a hardware-in-loop simulation platform was established for ANC in car cabins. On the basis of the platform, the control effects of several secondary sound sources locations were compared and the optimal one was selected. Then a hardware-in-loop simulation was made in the actual conditions, and the tracking performance of the controller was analyzed. Simulation shows that the established system can play an important role in the low-frequency noise reduction: the peak noise reduction reaches 10dB (Lin) or so at all speeds and the system responds quickly. So, the system established in this paper has some practical significance in promoting the application of the active noise control products in cars.

A single-channel self-adaptive feed-forward digital controller was chosen to establish an ANC system in car cabins to eliminate the noise at the location of drivers right ear. For the previous feed-forward ANC system, microphones were more used to capture the signal of primary sound source as a system reference signal, so that the secondary acoustic feedback was inevitable and affected the system stability [2]. In order to avoid secondary acoustic feedback while obtaining reference signal, the correlation between the noise in car cabins and the engine vibration acceleration was studied in the steady-state working speed of a car. Data show that, in any steady-state speed, both the peak of engine surface vibration acceleration and the peak of the power spectral density of noise signal at the driver's right ear position emerge at the fundamental frequency of the speed. This shows that there is a strong correlation between the engine vibration and noise in car cabins. So, its feasible to get the reference signal by using engine vibration acceleration to predict the noise in car cabin while avoiding the secondary acoustic feedback. In addition, the low-frequency noise in car cabin mainly comes from solid born noise, and the energy of the initial noise source is used to excite the vibration of the body panels to radiate noise finally. Regardless of transmission routes, the noise in car cabins is due to the acoustic characteristics of car cabin and the vibration of body panels, so the vibration of body panels, as an important character to figure the noise in car cabins, should not be ignored.

Figure 1. Structure diagram of active noise control system in car cabins 1-engine vibration acceleration sensor; 2-floor vibration acceleration sensor; 3-roof vibration acceleration sensor; 4-error sensors; 5-secondary sound source; 6-controller

978-1-4244-4994-1/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

III. A. According to theory of ANC and the correlation analysis, the active noise control system structure in this paper is shown in Fig.1. First, three vibration acceleration signals, which come from the engine block surface, the floor under the drivers foot and the roof panel, are collected under different working conditions. The noise signal at the drivers right ear is collected at the same time. Then, by the method of off-line learning and on-line use, a BP neural network input and output model is established with MATLAB to predict the sound level at the location of the driver's right ear [3,4]. Finally, the predicted signal is taken as the input reference signal of the control system. The reference signal which comes from the neural network is modulated in amplitude, delayed in time, reversed in phase, self-adaptive filtered, amplified through the power amplifier. Then the processed signal drives the speaker, the secondary sound source, to produce sound signal which, at the local noise-controlled area, is nearly equal to the primary sound source signal in amplitude and reversed in phase . Through the sound channel between the speaker and error microphone, the sound wave from the speaker meets with the primary sound source and the result after canceling each other is recorded by error microphone. Because the sound channel will make the output signal from the speaker attenuate in amplitude and shift in phase, the adaptive algorithm will automatically adjust and amend the controller parameters according to the input signal from the error microphone. So, active noise control system becomes more and more close to its ideal state of noise elimination [5]. Thus, a real-time closed-loop control system forms. In the system, the three input acceleration signals are from the engine, the roof, and the floor; the speaker is taken as the output, and the residual noise signal from the driver's right ear is taken as the feedback. Before establishing the hardware-in-loop simulation platform, software simulation was finished. By using the modules in the MATLAB/Simulink, a software simulation system of ANC is established. With the pre-acquired vibration and noise signal as the input of the model, the control effect is shown in Table 1. Software simulation shows that the establishment of active noise control system is valid in theory.
TABLE I THE SOFTWARE SIMULATION RESULTS OF ACTIVE NOISE CONTROL IN CABINS
Engine working speed rpm Peak frequency Hz Noise peak reduction dBLin 800 27 16 1300 43 15.3 1900 65 12.5 2400 80 8.4 3000 100 6.6

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HARDWARE-IN-LOOP SIMULATION PLATFORM

Software and Hardware Configuration of the Platform The hardware-in-loop simulation platform in this paper is used to implement functions of the controller in Fig.1. The core of the platform is RTW/xPC, and on the basis of RTW/xPC, the peripheral software and hardware are configured. The technical approach of host-target machine is adopted by xPC target. In the Windows system of the host, the target language Editor Visual C++ and MATLAB/Simulink softwares are installed. The hosts main function is to translate the simulink model of ANC into C code format, to download the C code to the target machine CPU through the network, and to extract the running results from the target machine. Target machine does not require any software, but start up into the xPC environment interface directly with the floppy disk. Target machine is the core of real-time calculations in charge of implementing the C code from the host, monitoring the whole control process in real-time, recording the simulation data. In order to exchange the data with the electro-acoustic devices and the sensors, an I/O board must be installed on the target machine. In this paper, a NI 6024E I/O board made by USA National Instruments Company is selected. The A/D and D/A conversion in simulation are completed by the peripheral circuit. B. Controller Model The key to decide the control effect of ANC is the C code running on the target machine. And the C code is translated from the controller model in the host machine.

Figure 2. Controller model of ANC test in cabin

As shown in Fig.2, the signal input part of the system includes the NI 6024E signal input module, signal preprocessing module and the Mux module. NI 6024E input module introduces the acceleration and noise signals acquired by sensors into the control system by reading the data on the data acquisition card. Signal pre-processing module mainly deals with the signal distortion resulted by the zero drift and trend during the data collection process. The Mux module makes the three acceleration signals into three-dimensional vector which is needed by the BP neural network noise prediction module. Secondary path estimating module

transforms the predicted reference signal from the BP neural network module into filter-X signal r(n). After being modulated in amplitude and reversed in phase by the ANC controller, filtered-X signal converges with the random noise signal to generate the controller output signal. The error signals from the secondary path estimating module, ANC controller and additional filter intercross each other, so interference generated by introducing the additional random noise can be eliminated to a maximum extent. Through a gain adjustment part, the output signal of controller is directly sent to the NI 6024E board in which the D/A conversion is completed and the analogue signals is outputted to drive electro-acoustic devices. IV. ANC SIMULATION AND SYSTEM PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

tests in three locations separately, the power spectral density comparison between the original noise signal and the residual noise signal at the drivers right ear is shown at Fig.3. It can be seen that the control effect of location 2 is the best, which not only suppresses the noise peak frequency components better, but also doesnt take up movement space of passengers. So, the location 2 is chosen to place the speaker to do further study in the following simulation. B. Effect of Active Noise Control at Different Speeds The noise signals before and after the active control were collected at six steady-state conditions, which are 800,1200,1500,1900,2100 and 2700 rpm. The analysis is completed in both time domain and frequency domain to check the control effect of ANC system. Take the 1900rpm as an example.

According to the layout in Fig.1, the hardware-in-loop simulation platform, acceleration sensors, charge amplifier, sound power amplifier, sound level meter, microphone and some other instruments were connected to form the system of ANC in cabins, and then the simulation was carried on. When the simulation was on going, the car windows were closed, the transmission was on "N" gear, and the driver controlled the accelerator pedal to get different engine speeds. A. Research on Secondary Sound Source Locations Researches on active noise control at home and abroad have shown that the location of the secondary sound source has greater influence on the effect and space of noise elimination, and the effect is better when the center normal of the secondary sound source aims at the microphone [6, 7].In this paper, because the noise at the location of drivers right ear will be eliminated, so the error microphone will be placed in the same location. In the simulation, three locations were chosen for the secondary sound source: (1) the location on the instrument panel(front), (2) the location on the head restraint of the copilot seat(middle), and (3) the location on the coatpanel(rear). The speaker at the three locations must aim at the error microphone.

Figure 4. The comparison of sound pressure before and after ANC

Figure 5. Power spectral density comparison before and after ANC

Figure 3. The control effect comparison of different secondary sound source locations

By comparing the control effect of three different secondary sound source locations when the engine speed is at 2500rpm, an optimal location will be decided. After the ANC

When the primary and secondary sound fields are in an intervention state of elimination, the fluctuation amplitude of air particles becomes smaller, which directly results the amplitude decrease of the time-domain noise signal inside the cabin. From Fig.4, we can see that the noise signal amplitude after the control is basically smaller than the original noise signal. When the simulation environment is inevitably interfered at some times, the ANC system needs to track the environment changes and to adjust its calculation weight. So, in a short time the situation of noise signal being unstable and the error signal amplitude being increased will appear. But, the system can quickly correct the error and return to the state of steady convergence. At all speeds, the ANC has achieved some control effect.

Power spectral density reflects the distribution of signal energy in the frequency domain. As shown in Fig.5, the peak of power spectral density has a 0.107Pa2/Hz decrease after the ANC, so ANC effect is very noticeable. The peak frequency of the power spectral density is not absolutely identical before and after control, which is resulted by the engine speeds drift at a small area and doesnt affect the verification of the simulation effect.

by the error microphone and the driving signal which the controller output to the secondary sound source. The crosscorrelation function curve is shown in Fig.7, and the time shift of the first peak time is the reaction time. The first peak appears in the 0.3s around, which indicates that, in the existing experimental conditions, the control system response relatively rapidly, and its tracking performance can meet the requirements of active noise experiments.

Figure 6. Sound pressure level comparison before and after ANC

Figure 7. Tracking performance of ANC controller

From the comparison of the sound pressure level curves in Fig.6, it can be seen that, in the steady-state, the peak can achieve a 10dB(Lin) decrease after ANC, so the function of low-frequency noise suppression is remarkable. When the secondary sound source works, the system will introduce highfrequency irregular components, which is in line with acoustic interference principle. The sound waves radiated by the secondary sound source contain frequency components that do not exist in the input signals, which is the harmonic distortion and intermodulation distortion resulted by the nonlinear of the vibration system and the magnetic circuit system of speaker. The energy of these disturbance is limited and far below the sound pressure level of the peak frequency at all working conditions. The control effect of hardware-in-loop ANC in cabins is shown in Table 2.
TABLE . THE HARDWARE-IN LOOP SIMULATION RESULTS OF ACTIVE NOISE CONTROL IN CABINS

V.

CONCLUSIONS

Through the hardware-in-loop simulation of ANC in cabins in this paper, it can be concluded that: 1) As shown in the analysis in both time domain and frequency domain, the active noise control system established in this paper is capable of effective control of the lowfrequency noise inside the car. Especially, the system has obvious control effect with the peak frequency noise components. Within the regular speed range, the peak noise reduction can reach to 10dB (Lin) around at all the steady-state conditions. 2) The average response time of the active noise controller is about 0.3s. The system responses quickly, tracking performance is good and provides a reliable guarantee of the active noise control in car cabins, so its significant to promote the application of ANC system products in vehicles. REFERENCES
[1] Moreggia, Vittorio, Perspectives for practical application of active control of noise and vibrations in passenger cars, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Design Engineering Division (Publication) DE, v 93, p 9-18, 1996, Active Control of Vibration and Noise. Kuo, Sen M.; Vijayan, Dipa, Adaptive feedback active noise control, Proceedings - National Conference on Noise Control Engineering, p 473-478, 1994, Progress in Noise Control for Industry. ZHANG Jiangnan, etc. NN-based Adaptive Control of Interior Noise [J], Automobile Technology, 2003 (10)1-3 (in chinese) Hua Chunlei, Jin Xiaoxiong, Lin Yuhui, Peng Wei, Experimental research on active control of automobile engine vibration, Journal of Vibration, Measurement and Diagnosis, v 28, n 3, p 294-297, September 2008 (in chinese) Kuo, Sen M.; Vijayan, Dipa, Adaptive algorithms and experimental verification of feedback active noise control systems, Noise Control Engineering Journal, v 42, n 2, p 37-42, Mar-Apr. Benzaria, E., Martin, V., Secondary source locations in active noise control: selection or optimization? Journal of Sound and Vibration, v 173, n 1, p 137-144, May 26.

Engine working speed(rpm) 800 Peak frequency(Hz) Reduction of noise peak (dB(Lin)) 27

1200 40

1500 50

1900 62

2100 70

2700 90 0.06 7.3

[2]

Reduction of PSD(Pa2/Hz) 0.065 0.074 0.081 0.107 0.072 8.93 9.69 10.37 10.38 8.44

C. Tracking Performance Analysis of Active Noise Controller The tracking performance of the controller refers to the ability of the controller detecting the signal input, responding quickly to output control signals, driving the implementation parts to act and bringing control effects. Tracking performance is an important indicator of evaluating the controller, and is usually described by the reaction time of the controller. The reaction time of controller can be obtained by the cross-correlation function between the noise signal collected

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[5]

[6]

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Benzaria,E., Martin,V., Determination of the locations of secondary sources in active acoustic control, Proceedings of the 3rd French Conference on Acoustics. Part 1 (of 2), May 2, 1994 - May 6, 1994