Fraunhofer Institute Developing Noise Cancelling Windows
Thilo Bein and a team of engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability have developed noise canceling windows. Windows transfer noise because they vibrate like a speaker cone, by controlling the vibration, Bein and pals have been able to reduce sounds at 90-100 decibels by about 50% percent.
Bein used small patches made of a ceramic piezoelectric compound, which senses “incoming vibrations” and then instantly sends the information to a computer. The computer sends back an inverse phase vibration to the piezo device, which effectively cancels the sound.
The gray patches you see above can reportedly be transparent, but the team hasn’t tackled this issue quite yet. During the next three years, the Fraunhofer group team hopes to mold the prototype into a marketable version.
