On the Universality of Active Noise Control Concepts in Control Engineering: A Perspective in Control Engineering Education

Active Noise Control (ANC) systems involve the application of many control engineering concepts which makes them suitable for control engineering education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The physics involved revolving around destructive noise interference through superposition is easily understood. The complexity of the system can be gradually increased from ideal to realistic cases to meet the required educational levels while introducing important control concepts like feedback and feedforward architecture, nonminimum phase, linearity and nonlinearity, time delay and multivariable systems. The ANC control methods are rich incorporating linear and nonlinear fixed nonadaptive and adaptive control, robust and optimal control, neural network, and fuzzy logic. The systems also enable introduction to deep learning, digital signal processing, and differences between analog and digital electronic systems. In this paper, the main control concepts, ideas, and methods applied in ANC in presented as a series of ‘concept’ to be addressed in control engineering education. Furthermore, this work aims towards translational research where the ideas and approach applicable to ANC may also be beneficial and adopted in other control applications.