Great efforts are undertaken by scientists and manufacturers to reduce noise generated by devices present in the human environment. This task is particularly difficult in the case of low-frequency noise; however, active noise reduction methods can be a solution to such problems. The purpose of this article is to present the active noise-controlling casing method applied to a washing machine, whose noise generated during the spinning process is to be reduced. The paper presents a set of experimental measurements and analyses. It also provides hardware and software configuration details. The employed active control system can efficiently reduce noise, even by 16 dBA in the low-frequency range up to 300 Hz, which is an important step towards making the technology ready for manufacturing. The conclusions drawn are valid for different active noise-control applications, considering a variety of devices.
Keywords: active casing; active noise control; device noise control; structural control.