An investigation into the effect of uncertainty on active acoustic cloaking

Acoustic cloaking is an area of significant research interest, as the ability to minimise the effect that an object has on its enclosing soundfield has potential applications in architectural acoustics and underwater acoustics. The use of active control as an acoustic cloaking strategy has been presented previously in the literature, and both simulation and experimental results of active acoustic cloaking systems have been discussed. The majority of these systems rely on prior-knowledge of the scattering object, measured in an initial setup stage, which is then used in the calculation of the acoustic scattered pressure, however the robustness of these systems to uncertainties remains an open area of research. This study will investigate the effects of uncertainty, in both the plant response and the disturbance field, on the performance of an active acoustic cloaking system. This provides new insight into the limitations of an active acoustic cloaking system when implemented in a practical environment. Experimental results of a rigid spherical scatterer are presented when active acoustic cloaking is implemented using an array of loudspeakers and microphones and the effect of varying the size of the scattering object is investigated.