Passive Acoustic Tracking of Minke Whales

Abstract

This project developed model-based 3D passive acoustic tracking methods for minke whales. It was conducted in support of ONR Award N000140910489 in which T. Norris (Bio-Waves) conducted visual surveys at PMRF and S. Martin (SPAWAR) collected acoustic data on the PMRF bottom-mounted hydrophones. In this project, these data were analyzed to detect, characterize, and track minke whale calls. A minke boing detector and 3D model-based tracker was implemented. Acoustically derived positions were compared with SPA WAR position estimates (using the MM3 2D time-of-arrival tracking method). The MM3 2D tracker gave similar boing position estimates to the 3D model-based tracker. The localized boings were within the range for which direct paths exit and for which the constant-SSP TOA method (used by MM3 2D) is expected to give reasonable position estimates. The importance of using model-based tracking to get accurate position estimates increases with the range of the animal from the hydrophones, with hydrophone spacing, and with increasing complexity of sound speed profiles.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 03, 2011
Accession Number
ADA535209

Entities

People

  • Eva-Marie Nosal

Organizations

  • University of HawaiĘ»i System

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Equipment
  • Acoustic Propagation
  • Acoustic Tracking
  • Acoustics
  • Animals
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Frequency
  • Hydrophones
  • Marine Mammals
  • Odontocetes
  • Ray Tracing
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional

Readers

  • Geodesy
  • Marine Mammal Biology
  • Radar Systems Engineering.

Technology Areas

  • Space