Biological Sonar Systems: A Bionics Survey

Abstract

The literature on biological sonar systems (bats, birds, marine mammals) was reviewed and past and present investigators were interviewed to ascertain the contributions, present and potential, of work in this field to high resolution sonar technology. It was concluded that there have been no contributions to date. Five areas of research were identified as potentially contributory: passive target ranging by the owl, signal design for target recognition, neural processing for target detection and recognition, the psychophysiology of sound localization, and the mechanics of signal generation by the small whales. The available system(s) and performance data on the bats and small whales are tabulated, and up-to-date bibliographies on each biological order are included.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 05, 1972
Accession Number
AD0755175

Entities

People

  • K. J. Diercks

Organizations

  • University of Texas at Austin

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Measurement
  • Acoustics
  • Biology
  • Biosonar
  • Birds
  • Collision Avoidance
  • Doppler Effect
  • Ear
  • Echo Ranging
  • Habitats
  • Odontocetes
  • Porpoises
  • Range Finding
  • Repetition Rate
  • Target Classification
  • Target Recognition
  • Three Dimensional

Readers

  • Acoustical Oceanography.
  • Marine Mammal Biology
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology