Generalized acoustic energy density based active noise control in single frequency diffuse sound fields.

In a diffuse sound field, prior research has established that a secondary source can theoretically achieve perfect cancellation at an error microphone in the far field of the secondary source. However, the sound pressure level is generally only reduced in a small zone around the error sensor, and at a distance half of a wavelength away from the error sensor, the averaged sound pressure level will be increased by more than 10 dB. Recently an acoustic energy quantity, referred to as the generalized acoustic energy density (GED), has been introduced. The GED is obtained by using a weighting factor in the formulation of total acoustic energy density. Different values of the weighting factor can be chosen for different applications. When minimizing the GED at the error sensor, one can adjust the weighting factor to increase the spatial extent of the "quiet zone" and to achieve a desired balance between the degree of attenuation in the quiet zone and the total energy added into the sound field.