(Natural News) The newest design for a noise-canceling system can fit inside a pillow of a person who has to share their bed with someone who snores in their sleep. By placing it closer to the head of a person, it can efficiently cancel out loud snoring noises that can ruin sleep.

A sound with a noise level of at least 35 decibels (dB) can affect the length and quality of a person's sleep. In turn, sleep deprivation and poor sleep affect people's behavior.

The noise levels of moderately loud snoring can range from 50 dB to 60 dB, around the same range as an indoor conversation. The loudest snore on record is 116 dB, which is as loud as a live rock concert.

With this in mind, researchers from Northern Illinois University (NIU) presented a noise-canceling system that can adapt itself to the individual breathing patterns of a snorer. Their device is the first one that fits inside a pillow instead of on the headboard. They published their findings in the Journal of Automatica Sinica. (Related: Separating fact from fiction: Sleep expert debunks popular sleep myths.)

The new noise-canceling system fits inside the pillow of a snorer's partner

A noise canceler generates a sound wave with the same amplitude and the opposite phase of the target wave. It analyzes the initial sound, eliminates audio errors that take the form of residual noise, and then releases antinoise that can disrupt the target sound wave.

Most noise-canceling devices fit on the headboard of a bed. But NIU researcher Lichuan Liu warned that the distance between these devices and the source of snoring hampers their effectiveness.

"The quiet zone is centered…away from the ears of the snorer's bed partner, resulting in less noise reduction around the ears of the snorer's bed partner," Liu explained. "Moreover, a headboard is heavy, bulky, and not portable."