Identification of Artificial Neural Network Models for Three-Dimensional Simulation of a Vibration-Acoustic Dynamic System

Industrial noise can be successfully mitigated with the combined use of passive and Active Noise Control (ANC) strategies. In a noisy area, a practical solution for noise attenuation may include both the use of baffles and ANC. When the operator is required to stay in movement in a delimited spatial area, conventional ANC is usually not able to adequately cancel the noise over the whole area. New control strategies need to be devised to achieve acceptable spatial coverage. A three-dimensional actuator model is proposed in this paper. Active Noise Control (ANC) usually requires a feedback noise measurement for the proper response of the loop controller. In some situations, especially where the real-time tridimensional positioning of a feedback transducer is unfeasible, the availability of a 3D precise noise level estimator is indispensable. In our previous works [1,2], using a vibrating signal of the primary source of noise as an input reference for spatial noise level prediction proved to be a very good choice. Another interesting aspect observed in those previous works was the need for a variable-structure linear model, which is equivalent to a sort of a nonlinear model, with unknown analytical equivalence until now. To overcome this in this paper we propose a model structure based on an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as a nonlinear black-box model to capture the dynamic nonlinear behaveior of the investigated process. This can be used in a future closed loop noise cancelling strategy. We devise an ANN architecture and a corresponding training methodology to cope with the problem, and a MISO (Multi-Input Single-Output) model structure is used in the identification of the system dynamics. A metric is established to compare the obtained results with other works elsewhere. The results show that the obtained model is consistent and it adequately describes the main dynamics of the studied phenomenon, showing that the MISO approach using an ANN is appropriate for the simulation of the investigated process. A clear conclusion is reached highlighting the promising results obtained using this kind of modeling for ANC.