Bose wants to apply noise canceling in cars
Not really PC relates, but this sparked my attention. Bose has been around for years with Active noise cancellation, especially in headphones. In a bit of a new concept, Bose now wants to apply noise canceling in cars.
Bose supplies audio systems to many car manufacturers. They will release a QuietComfort Road Noise Control, short for RNC. The technology is already available. Unpleasant road noises will be minimized. Bose does this by placing various microphones and accelerometers in the cabin. This allows an algorithm to measure vibrations that cause the sounds. The technology is combined with other Bose techniques that reduce the engine noise in vehicles with a combustion engine. The system is also available without Bose audio system.
Here’s how the company describes the new tech in a press release:
“Accelerometers mounted on the vehicle body enable a Bose algorithm to continuously measure vibrations that create noise. This information is then used to calculate an acoustic cancellation signal, which is delivered through the vehicle’s speakers to reduce the targeted noise. Microphones placed inside the cabinmonitor residual noise levels, allowing the system to adapt the control signal for optimized performance over different road surfaces, while automatically adjusting over time as the vehicle ages.”
The company says the tech, which builds upon and combines with the existing Engine Harmonic Cancellation (EHC) and Bose Engine Harmonic Enhancement (EHE) for reducing engine noise, will begin appearing in cars in 2021.
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Wouldn't this...theoretically, be an issue with police/emergency vehicles?
I'm not sure there's specifically a law that you must be able to hear the vehicles if their sirens are on, and there's obviously a visual aspect to the vehicles that you should be paying attention to, i'm just envisioning an era with all noise-canceling vehicles making the sirens of emergency vehicles moot point aside from a pedestrian point of view (...and then, there's noise canceling headphones already, so....)
And then, as well, honking becomes moot point i guess too?
Again, i get someone can have their music so loud they can't hear any of it anyways, but to actually have a technology inside your vehicle to make certain you don't, just seems....counter-productive, unless all vehicles go driverless and you don't have to pay attention to audio ques on the roadways
Unless the noise cancellation is targeting specific noises, rather then all ambient noises, like the article, kinda, sorta, implies, but doesn't also specifically say it doesn't...
Noise cancelling doesn't have to (and probably can't) cover the higher sounds frequencies which contain speech, sirens, etc.
With active noise cancelling you can always control which frequencies you "counter".
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Noise cancelling doesn't have to (and probably can't) cover the higher sounds frequencies which contain speech, sirens, etc.
With active noise cancelling you can always control which frequencies you "counter".
If it's intelligent enough to not block out specific noises, or only block out specific noises, either one, then that'd be pretty cool.
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I am fairly certain that they already do this to a certain degree. One of my clients is a GM dealership, and the mechanics were showing me the noise-cancelling stuff. That thing in the back of most newer gm vehicles that looks like a subwoofer is a noise cancelling speaker.
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They should give Electric Cars an engine noise instead. They very dangerous, especially for elderly people who can't hear that well anymore.
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Posts: 8318
Joined: 2008-07-31
Wouldn't this...theoretically, be an issue with police/emergency vehicles?
I'm not sure there's specifically a law that you must be able to hear the vehicles if their sirens are on, and there's obviously a visual aspect to the vehicles that you should be paying attention to, i'm just envisioning an era with all noise-canceling vehicles making the sirens of emergency vehicles moot point aside from a pedestrian point of view (...and then, there's noise canceling headphones already, so....)
And then, as well, honking becomes moot point i guess too?
Again, i get someone can have their music so loud they can't hear any of it anyways, but to actually have a technology inside your vehicle to make certain you don't, just seems....counter-productive, unless all vehicles go driverless and you don't have to pay attention to audio ques on the roadways
Unless the noise cancellation is targeting specific noises, rather then all ambient noises, like the article, kinda, sorta, implies, but doesn't also specifically say it doesn't...