Instantaneous Passive and Active Detection, Localization, Monitoring and Classification of Marine Mammals over Long Ranges with High-Resolution Towed Array Measurements

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This Proposal was submitted to the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) Broad Agency Announcement 10-024 titled "Marine Mammal Detection and Monitoring" and selected for funding by NSF.The PI's propose to use existing data collected during the 2006 ocean acoustic waveguide remote sensing (OAWRS) Experiment in the Gulf of Maine to develop passive and active methods for tracking marine mammals in near-real-time. The goals of the proposal include development of signal processing techniques for near-real-time localization and ranging of marine mammal vocalizations using a high-resolution array, including using the array invariant method for ranging, adaptive non-linear matched filter processing for improved SNR of signals, and modeling to estimate the performance of the developed algorithms in variable levels of noise. Additional effort will be used to estimate the low frequency target strengths of localized marine mammals from the passive acoustic analysis phase in the study.Combining passive and active acoustic sensing with towed arrays provides an efficient approach for detecting, localizing and classifying marine mammals rapidly over wide areas for many important operations such as geophysical surveys, naval exercises and population assessment surveys that already deploy towed arrays. Acoustic sensing is the only approach that is effective during night-time operations, and in the daytime during poor weather conditions not conducive to visual surveys. It is important to remotely sense marine mammal locations and behavior so that steps can be taken to minimize impact of man-made activities on their populations.Broader Impacts: This is a collaborative effort between male and female faculty and commercial partners in different disciplines. The improved sensing capabilities of marine mammals over wide ranges could be used in the future for mitigation purposes to limit human induced sound impacts on marine mammal populations, such as those produced by marine geophysical research that use active seismic equipment. The study will also provide education opportunities for undergraduate students and support one graduate student.