Ranging bowhead whale calls in a shallow-water dispersive waveguide

This paper presents the performance of three methods for estimating the range of broadband (50-500 Hz) bowhead whale calls in a nominally 55-m-deep waveguide: Conventional mode filtering (CMF), synthetic time reversal (STR), and triangulation. The first two methods use a linear vertical array to exp...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 136; no. 1; p. 130
Main Authors Abadi, Shima H, Thode, Aaron M, Blackwell, Susanna B, Dowling, David R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.07.2014
Subjects
Acoustics - instrumentation
Algorithms
Animals
Bowhead Whale - physiology
Computer Simulation
Environmental Monitoring - methods
Linear Models
Motion
Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted
Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
Sound
Sound Spectrography
Time Factors
Transducers
Vocalization, Animal
Water
Online AccessGet more information

Cover

More Information
Summary:This paper presents the performance of three methods for estimating the range of broadband (50-500 Hz) bowhead whale calls in a nominally 55-m-deep waveguide: Conventional mode filtering (CMF), synthetic time reversal (STR), and triangulation. The first two methods use a linear vertical array to exploit dispersive propagation effects in the underwater sound channel. The triangulation technique used here, while requiring no knowledge about the propagation environment, relies on a distributed array of directional autonomous seafloor acoustics recorders (DASARs) arranged in triangular grid with 7 km spacing. This study uses simulations and acoustic data collected in 2010 from coastal waters near Kaktovik, Alaska. At that time, a 12-element vertical array, spanning the bottom 63% of the water column, was deployed alongside a distributed array of seven DASARs. The estimated call location-to-array ranges determined from CMF and STR are compared with DASAR triangulation results for 19 whale calls. The vertical-array ranging results are generally within ±10% of the DASAR results with the STR results providing slightly better agreement. The results also indicate that the vertical array can range calls over larger ranges and with greater precision than the particular distributed array discussed here, whenever the call locations are beyond the distributed array boundaries.
ISSN:1520-8524
DOI:10.1121/1.4881924