General-Purpose Processors for Active Vibro-Acoustic Control: Discussion and Experiences

This paper gives an appropriate perspective about why, how, and when low-cost general-purpose computers can be used, with performance similar to dedicated processors, for the implementation of advanced multi-input–multi-output feedback/feedforward active noise and vibration controllers. High performance and real-time capabilities requirements of active vibro-acoustic control systems are critically discussed with respect to the architectural features of general-purpose processors and the actual closed-loop bandwidth of interest. Discussion on proprietary and free real-time operating systems running on general-purpose hardware is included and a free open-source solution is described. An aeronautical application is presented to support paper position and demonstrate feasibility of the approach hereafter proposed.