A GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR ACTIVE NOISE-CONTROL ACTUATOR POSITIONING

Active noise control systems (ANCS) have been used extensively in several diverse applications in order to reduce the sound levels within a confined space. Several control schemes have been proposed, all of which rely on the same basic idea, namely that of introducing an artificial secondary sound field in order to partially cancel the primary sound field. This secondary field is created by using a number of actuators (usually speakers), placed in several locations within the space of interest. In our particular case of interest, the ANCS under consideration is an interior one. The overall ANCS comprises a set of sensors, a control system, and the actuators. Clearly, the optimal design of all three components needs to be addressed when designing an ANCS. In this paper, the problem of deciding to which specific locations (out of several possible ones) the actuators will be located for optimal performance of the ANCS is addressed. Specifically, a genetic algorithm is designed for this problem. The algorithm was implemented and tested against a simple greedy approach. Results indicate the efficiency of the Genetic Algorithm for the problem at hand. (C) 1995 Academic Press Limited