Collaborative Research: IDBR: VoxNet--A deployable bioacoustic sensor network

该奖项支持PI与加州大学洛杉矶分校和麻省理工学院的研究人员合作，为野生动物生物学家设计和开发仪器，通过探测、记录和分析动物的声音来清点动物。该系统还将允许野外生物学家提出有关声学通信的时间和空间动态的问题。许多物种会发出声音，通过识别和定位它们，我们可以对生物多样性进行普查，并研究交流的自然动态。通常，这些将是声音，如鸟的歌声，或哺乳动物或青蛙的叫声，但理论上，设备和算法可以用于其他类型的声音（如蟋蟀翅膀的鸣叫）。要做到这一点，我们必须建立强大的硬件和易于使用的软件，野外生物学家可以和将使用。虽然已经有了“概念验证”的发展。工具和算法的许多组成部分可用的系统，没有可靠的，强大的，和易于使用的系统，将允许现场生物学家轻松普查声学动物。为此，将开发一个名为VoxNet的平台。VoxNet是一个集成的软件和硬件包，它将在软件、近实时事件识别、能源效率和更长的通信范围等主要领域超越现有技术，实现巨大飞跃。VoxNet将是一种新型的、高度集成的、可部署的声学传感器节点，与任何现有系统相比，它的单位成本和能源成本都更低。VoxNet将包括一个高度优化的系统软件和驱动程序，通过占空循环来降低能源成本。此外，将开发新的2D/3D算法来定位声源。这些新算法将在VoxNet节点的分布式网络上近乎实时地运行，使用户能够在现场检测和识别发声动物。基于WaveScope编程模型和XStream分布式流处理系统（部分技术在麻省理工学院的NSF支持下开发），将开发一个功能强大且易于使用的软件环境。最后，该系统将在实地进行测试，以对鸟类进行普查，并识别个别发出警报的土拨鼠。野外生物学家使用的工具的发展将创造新的方法来普查生物多样性，并提出关于声音显示的空间和时间动态的不可能或难以提出的问题。当这些工具投入使用时，我们希望它们能产生新的重要发现。这些工具的传播将提高行为学、生态学和进化生物学的研究效率。而且，这些工具将创造新的方式来普查、保护和管理生物多样性。开发这些工具的过程将为本科生和研究生创造综合教育机会。

This award supports a collaborative effort between the PI and investigators at the University of California at Los Angeles and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to design and develop instrumentation for wildlife biologists to inventory animals by detecting, recording, and analyzing their sounds. The system will also allow for field biologists to ask questions about the temporal and spatial dynamics of acoustic communication. Many species produce sounds, and by identifying and localizing them, we can census biodiversity and study the natural dynamics of communication. Typically, these will be vocal sounds, such as bird song, or mammal or frog calls, but in theory, the equipment and algorithms can be used for other sorts of sounds (such as the stridulations of cricket wings). To do so, we must build robust hardware and easy to use software that field biologists can and will use. While there has been the development of ?proof-of-concept? tools and algorithms for many of the components of a usable system, there is no reliable, robust, and easy-to-use system that will permit field biologists to easily census acoustic animals. To do so, a platform called VoxNet will be developed. VoxNet is an integrated software and hardware package which will be a quantum leap forward beyond existing technology in for main areas: software, near-real time event recognition, energy efficiency, and a much longer communication range. VoxNet will be a new, highly integrated, deployable acoustic sensor node with a lower unit cost, and lower energy cost than any existing system. VoxNet will include a highly optimized system software and driver to reduce energy costs through duty cycling. In addition, new 2D/3D algorithms to localize the source of the sound will be developed. These new algorithms will run in near-real-time on a distributed network of VoxNet nodes, enabling users to detect and identify vocalizing animals while in the field. A powerful and easy-to-use software environment based on the WaveScope programming model and the XStream distributed stream processing system (technology partially developed under NSF support at MIT) will be developed. Finally, the system will be tested in the field to both census birds and identify individually alarm calling marmots. The development of tools for field biologists to use will create new ways to census biodiversity, and ask here-to-for impossible or difficult-to-ask questions about the spatial and temporal dynamics of vocal displays. When deployed, we expect these tools to generate novel and important discoveries. The dissemination of these tools will enhance research productivity in behavior, ecology and evolutionary biology. And, these tools will create novel ways to census, conserve, and manage biodiversity. The process of developing these tools will create integrative educational opportunities for undergraduates and graduate students.