Nonlinear Active Noise Control for Infant Incubators in Neo-Natal Intensive Care Units

Excessive noise in neo-natal care units and inside incubators can have a number of detrimental effects on an infant's health. This paper presents a novel, audio-integrated approach to achieving active noise control (ANC) for infant incubators. This paper also presents the implementation of the robust, nonlinear filtered-X least mean M-estimate algorithm, for reducing impulsive interference in incubators. The healthcare application is further enhanced by integrating the "womb effect", i.e., by using intrauterine and maternal heart sounds, proven to be beneficial to infant health, for masking the residual noise. A computer model for audio-integrated noise cancellation utilizing experimentally measured transfer functions is developed for simulations using real medical equipment noise.