3. Finding more information
3.1. What is the active control newsletter?
An informative newsletter about active control is published monthly. "Active Sound & Vibration Control News" describes itself as "An independent publication focusing on Research and Development in the field of Active Sound and Vibration Control (AS/VC) among Industry, Universities, and Government." The current price is US$419/year. Interested readers may contact the publisher for a free sample.
Published by:
Tech Pubs Inc., 8858 Blue Sea Drive, Columbia, Maryland 21046 USA, Tel 410.381.9359, fax 410.381.5843
3.2. What companies produce active control products?
Some readers may wish to contact vendors for product literature. The following companies, LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER, produce active noise control products. No endorsement of any kind is implied by inclusion in this list, nor is this meant to be a complete list.
There are many other companies that produce system components or are involved in active control research and development -- far too many to list here. The companies listed below are only companies that produce commercially available products intended specifically for active noise control. Please suggest others as appropriate!
 | ABS GmbH, Gesellschaft für Automatisierung, Bildverarbeitung und Software
mbH, Wildenbruchstraße 15, 07745 Jena, Germany, phone +49 3641 615258, fax
+49 3641 675410, email abs@gtc.ibu.de
| ANR Headsets, 2955 Fawn Drive, Burlington, KY 41005, mailto://mmorgan@anr-headsets.com,
http://www.anr-headsets.com/
| Active Vibration Control Instrumentation, PCB Piezotronics, Inc., 3425
Walden Ave. Depew, NY 14043-2495, phone 716-684-0001
| BBN Physical Systems & Technologies, 70 Fawcett St, Cambrdige, MA
02138, phone 617-873-3533, fax 617-873-2918, email fberkman@bbn.com
(Dr. E. Frank Berkman, Technical Director).
| Causal Systems Pty Ltd., P.O. Box 100, Rundle Mall, South Australia 5000,
Australia, phone 61.8.303.5460, fax 61.8.303.4367, e-mail chansen@aelmg.adelaide.edu.au
(Colin Hansen), http://www.causal.on.net/
| Digisonix, Inc., 8401 Murphy Drive, Middleton, WI 53562-2243 USA, phone
608.836.3999, fax 608.836.5583, email: information@digisonix.com,
Web http://www.mailbag.com/users/dgsnx_mr/
| dSPACE Inc., 22260 Haggerty Road, Suite 120, Northville, MI 48167, phone
810.344.0096, fax 810.344.2060, email 75371.36@compuserve.com,
Web http://www.ti.com (search for DSPACE
once there).
| Headsets, Inc., 2330-B Lakeview, Amarillo, Texas 79109, USA, phone
806.358.6336, fax 806.358.6449, Paige Brittain, President.
| Noise Cancellation Technologies, Inc., Headquarters: Stamford,
Connecticut, 203.961.0500 (Joanna Lipper). Engineering facilities:
Linthicum, Maryland, USA, 410.636.8700, http://www.nct-active.com/
| Peltor Inc., 41 Commercial Way, E. Providence, RI 02914, Phone:
401.438.4800, Fax: 401.434.1708
| Walker Electronic Silencing, Inc. (formerly Walker Noise Cancellation
Technologies), http://www.WESilence.com
.
| Sennheiser Electronic Corporation & Neumann USA, 6 Vista Drive, P.O.
Box 987, Old Lyme, CT 06371, TEL 860.434.9190, FAX: 860.434.1759, info@sennheiserusa.com,
http://www.sennheiserusa.com/
| Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG, D-30900 Wedemark, 106005.55@Compuserve.com,
http://www.sennheiser.com/
| Sennheiser (Canada) Inc., 221 Labrosse Avenue, Pointe-Claire, Quebec,
Canada, H9R 1A3, TEL: 514.426.3013/800.463.1006, FAX:
.514.426.3953/800.463.3013, info@sennheiser.ca,
http://www.sennheiser.ca/
| Technofirst, Parc Technologique et Industriel de Napollon, 399, Avenue des
Templiers, 13676 Aubagne Cedex France, Tel(33) 4 42 03 46 60, Fax (33) 4 42
03 06 43, technof@technofirst.com,
http://www.technofirst.com
| Ultra Electronics Ltd., www.ultraquiet.com
.
| Also: Bose, David Clark, Sony, others | |
3.3. What universities teach active noise control?
Some readers may wish to contact universities regarding curricula that include active noise control. At this point, it is safe to say that ALL major engineering programs teach at least one course that discusses active noise control. The following schools, LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER, have reasonably extensive graduate research programs in active noise control. No endorsement of any kind is implied by inclusion in this list, nor is this meant to be a complete list. [Editor's note: Please help me add to this list, especially universities outside the USA. CR]
| Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands http://www.tudelft.nl/home.html
| Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA, Professor Robert Clark,
Director, Center for Applied Control, 919-660-5435, rclark@egr.duke.edu,
http://www.duke.edu/
| Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA http://www.gatech.edu/
| Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway http://www.ntnu.no/
| Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA http://web.mit.edu/
| Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, USA http://www.niu.edu/
| Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, USA http://www.odu.edu/
| Pennsylvania State University: The Graduate Program in Acoustics, Penn
State University, PO Box 30, State College, PA 16804, Phone (814) 865-6364,
Fax (814) 865-3119 http://www.acs.psu.edu
| Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA http://www.purdue.edu/
| RWTH Aachen, Germany, http://www.itm.rwth-aachen.de/
| Southampton University, Southampton, England http://www.soton.ac.uk/
| Technical University of Denmark, Denmark http://www.dtu.dk/dtu/dtu.html
| Technical University of Berlin, Germany http://www.tk.tu-berlin.de/
| Technical University of Erlangen, Germany
| Technical University of Munich, Germany
| Technical University of Stuttgart, Germany
| University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, http://www.mecheng.adelaide.edu.au/anvc/
| University of Auckland, New Zealand, Prof Marshall, h.marshall@auckland.ac.nz,
Dr. George Dodd g.dodd@auckland.ac.nz
| University of Goettingen, Germany
| University of Hamburg, Germany
| University of Karlskrona/Ronneby, Ronneby, Sweden http://www.hk-r.se/isb/isb_e.html
| University of London/Royal Holloway, Egham, Surrey, England http://www.ph.rhbnc.ac.uk/
| University of Salford, England
| Universite de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada http://www.usherb.ca/index.html
| Universite de Technologie de Compiegne, Compiegne, France http://www.univ-compiegne.fr/
| University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA http://www.utah.edu/HTML_Docs/Campus_Info.html
| Villanova University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA http://www.vill.edu/
| Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg,
Virginia, USA http://www.vt.edu/ | |
3.4. How can I learn more via Internet?
When this section was written in 1995, it listed nearly every existing Web site that even mentioned ANC. Today, not only are there far too many ANC Web sites to list here, but modern Web search engines such as www.ask.com and www.excite.com have made such lists largely obsolete.
The abbreviated list below includes only a handful of the available sites. Inclusion in this list does not imply any sort of product endorsement, and there are many worthwhile sites not listed here. To find out more using a Web search engine, search for the phrase "active noise control".
A recent addition to this list is Virginia Tech's Vibration and Acoustics Laboratory:
This site includes a software program that can perform a simple active noise control demonstration using a PC.
Two other excellent sites are maintained by Digisonix and Causal Systems
Limited, and both contain plenty of technical detail for those who want more
than this FAQ provides. These excellent resources may be found at:
Here are some other resources that deal with general acoustics and vibration topics:
| The Acoustics FAQ: http://www.point-and-click.com/campanella_acoustics/faq/faq.htm |
| If you have access to USENET newsgroups, check out the following: news:alt.sci.physics.acoustics
(general acoustics) news:comp.dsp (digital signal processing)
| Check out the new home page of the Acoustical Society of America: http://asa.aip.org
| Penn State University has an excellent acoustics home page: http://www.acs.psu.edu
| If you have access to e-mail, you can subscribe to the International Sound
& Vibration Digest by sending e-mail to yanas@eng.auburn.edu.
Back issues may be obtained from: gopher://mallard.duc.auburn.edu/11/Academic/Eng/ME | |
3.5. Are there short courses about active control?
Some readers may wish to contact universities or vendors that teach short courses on active noise control. There are many. Some are listed below. [Please help me expand this list. CR]
Title: "Implementing active control: Designing & integrating active
sound & vibration control systems"
Instructors: R.J. Bernhard, L.J. Eriksson, L.R. Miller, and H.K. Pelton
Contact: Digisonix, Inc., 8401 Murphy Drive, Middleton WI 53562-2543 USA, Fax
608.836.5583, Phone 608.836.3999 (information@digisonix.com)
Title: "Active control of sound & vibration"
Instructors: A.H. von Flotow, C. Fuller, and S. Elliott
Contact: Flotow & Associates, 1750 Country Club Road, Hood River OR
97031-9641 USA, Phone 503.387.2288
Title: ??
Instructors: ??
Contact: The Graduate Program in Acoustics, Penn State University, PO Box 30,
State College, PA 16804, Phone (814) 865-6364, Fax (814) 865-3119 (http://www.acs.psu.edu)
Title:
Instructors: Applied Technology Institute Training Seminars
Contact: http://catalog.com/hitekweb/acoustic.htm
3.6. References from the general literature
This section formerly contained references to articles from popular sources, i.e., non-technical magazines that you might find in a public library.
3.7. References from the technical literature
The articles listed below are textbooks and technical journal articles not usually carried by public libraries. There is a huge and rapidly expanding body of technical literature on active control, with hundreds of papers published annually. The handful shown here describe active control in general terms and/or provide lists of references.
Note: This list is woefully inadequate, and needs to be updated.
%A=author, %B=book title, %C=city, %D=date, %I=publisher, %J=journal, %K=keywords, %N=number, %P=pages, %T=article title, %V=volume, %X=comments
%A Nelson, P.A.
%A Elliott, S.J.
%B Active control of sound
%I Academic Press
%C London
%D 1992
%X well-done textbook and reference, good bibliography.
%A Widrow, B.
%A Stearns, S.D.
%B Adaptive Signal Processing
%I Prentice Hall
%C Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
%D 1985
%X classic reference on the LMS control algorithm
%A Lueg, P.
%D 1936
%T Process of silencing sound oscillation
%J U.S. Patent No. 2 043 416
%X generally considered the first published work on the subject, although Lueg's
German patent application predates it by a few weeks
%A H.F. Olson
%D 1953
%T Electronic sound absorber
%J Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
%V 25
%P 1130-1136
%X another early reference
3.7. Are there any bibliographies of active control articles?
D.Guicking has compiled a comprehensive bibligraphy of articles and papers on active control of sound and vibration. An electronic version on CD-ROM is rumored to be in preparation.
%A D.Guicking
%T Active Noise and Vibration Control. Reference bibliography
%D 1988, 1991, 1995
%I Drittes Physikalisches Institut., University of Göttingen, Germany
%X Contains over 5000 citations with author index and keyword index. For details
email: guicking@physik3.gwdg.de
A separate product developed by Flotow and Associates provides a comprehensive listing of patents related to active control of sound and vibration. For details contact: Flotow & Associates, 1750 Country Club Road, Hood River OR 97031-9641 USA, Phone 503.387.2288