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

该提案已提交给国家海洋合作计划（NOPP）广泛机构公告10-024，标题为“海洋哺乳动物检测和监测”，并被NSF选中资助。该项目建议利用2006年在缅因湾进行的海洋声波波导遥感（OAWRS）实验中收集的现有数据，开发出近实时跟踪海洋哺乳动物的被动和主动方法。该提案的目标包括使用高分辨率阵列开发用于海洋哺乳动物发声的近实时定位和测距的信号处理技术，包括使用阵列不变测距方法，自适应非线性匹配滤波器处理以提高信号的信噪比，以及建模以估计所开发算法在可变噪声水平下的性能。在研究的被动声学分析阶段，额外的努力将用于估计局部海洋哺乳动物的低频目标强度。将被动声传感和主动声传感与拖曳阵列相结合，为已经部署拖曳阵列的许多重要操作（如地球物理调查、海军演习和人口评估调查）提供了在大范围内快速检测、定位和分类海洋哺乳动物的有效方法。声波感应是唯一在夜间行动有效的方法，而在白天恶劣的天气条件下则不利于目测。遥感海洋哺乳动物的位置和行为是很重要的，这样可以采取措施尽量减少人为活动对其种群的影响。更广泛的影响：这是男女教师和不同学科的商业伙伴之间的合作努力。海洋哺乳动物在大范围内的感知能力得到改善，今后可用于缓解影响，以限制人类对海洋哺乳动物种群造成的声音影响，例如使用主动地震设备的海洋地球物理研究产生的声音影响。该研究还将为本科生提供教育机会，并支持一名研究生。

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.