We’re all familiar with noise cancelling headphones. I’ve got some that I use for transatlantic trips, and they’re great for minimising any repeating background noise.
Twenty years ago, when I was studying A-Level Physics, I was also building a new PC. I realised that, if I placed a microphone inside the computer case, and fed that into the audio input on the soundcard, I could use software to invert the sound wave and thus virtually eliminate fan noise. It worked a treat.
It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, to find that BOSE, best known for its headphones, are offering car manufacturers something similar with “road noise control”:
With accelerometers, multiple microphones, and algorithms, it’s much more complicated than what I rigged up in my bedroom as a teenager. But the principle remains the same.
Source: The Next Web
Ton Zijlstra
16 January 2019 — 14:49
Replied to Noise cancelling for cars is a no-brainer
We’re all familiar with noise cancelling headphones. I’ve got some that I use for transatlantic trips, and they’re great for minimising any repeating background noise…It doesn’t surprise me, therefore, to find that BOSE, best known for its headphones, are offering car manufacturers something similar
Noise cancelling in cars isn’t a no brainer I think. When I first got my noise cancelling headphones and had put them to good use on trains and airplanes, I tried to use them while driving in my car as well. I took them off again rather quickly, once I noticed that I actually use the car’s noises as feedback, e.g. for shifting gears, to determine road conditions, and other things. So with noise cancelling active I felt that part of my sensorium was cut off. It will take replacing those observations by ear for ones by other senses, actively rewiring entrained behaviour. For passengers it’s likely a different thing.