Active noise control system for headphone applications

This paper presents the design and implementation of an adaptive feedback active noise control (ANC) system for headphone applications. The ideal position of the error microphone in the ear-cup was studied and determined experimentally, and music signals were used for adaptive system identification of the secondary path. The designed ANC headphone was implemented using the TMS320C32 digital signal processor for real-time experiments. Performance has been evaluated and compared with a high-end commercial ANC headphone using the same set of primary noises including real-world engine noises. Experiment results show the proposed ANC headphone achieves higher noise cancellation, especially for low-frequency harmonics.