[ad_1]
Tired of the noise of construction work, speeding trains, and car alarms coming through the open window of your small apartment in a crowded metropolis?
Scientists believe they have found a way for city dwellers to let in fresh air while reducing the urban cacophony, and it’s a bit like placing massive noise-canceling headphones on their floor.
Under the system devised in Singapore, 24 small speakers are placed on the metal grill of an open window to create what the researchers called an “acoustic shield.”
When noise such as traffic or a subway is detected, the speakers generate sound waves that cancel out some of the din, in the same way that some high-tech headphones work.
It’s like “using noise to fight noise,” said Gan Woon-Seng, who heads the research team at Nanyang Technological University in the space-hungry city-state, where many complain about noise flooding apartments.
While blocking the racket from the outside, it also “lets in natural ventilation and lighting through the windows,” he told AFP, in a laboratory where a prototype of the device had been installed.
The system can reduce incoming sound by 10 decibels and works best with noises like trains or construction sites, but will not block out unpredictable high-frequency sounds like dog barking.
Gan hopes that allowing people to keep windows open for natural ventilation will reduce the use of energy-intensive air conditioners and could improve people’s health by reducing noise, which causes problems such as sleep disturbances.
Some might resist the idea of placing 24 tiny speakers in one of its grilles, although researchers are working on a version of the system that obstructs windows less.
They hope to eventually sell the device to those who want to install it in residential buildings.
cla / sr / gle
