title: Using a coherent hydrophone array for observing sperm whale range, classification, and shallow-water dive profiles.
abstract: Sperm whales in the New England continental shelf and slope were passively localized, in both range and bearing, and classified using a single low-frequency (<2500 Hz), densely sampled, towed horizontal coherent hydrophone array system. Whale bearings were estimated using time-domain beamforming that provided high coherent array gain in sperm whale click signal-to-noise ratio. Whale ranges from the receiver array center were estimated using the moving array triangulation technique from a sequence of whale bearing measurements. Multiple concurrently vocalizing sperm whales, in the far-field of the horizontal receiver array, were distinguished and classified based on their horizontal spatial locations and the inter-pulse intervals of their vocalized click signals. The dive profile was estimated for a sperm whale in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Maine with 160 m water-column depth located close to the array's near-field where depth estimation was feasible by employing time difference of arrival of the direct and multiply reflected click signals received on the horizontal array. By accounting for transmission loss modeled using an ocean waveguide-acoustic propagation model, the sperm whale detection range was found to exceed 60 km in low to moderate sea state conditions after coherent array processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
authors.forename: Duong D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Tran
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
authors.forename: Alexander C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Bohn
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
authors.forename: Delin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139.
authors.forename: Zheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139.
authors.forename: Nicholas C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Makris
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
authors.forename: Purnima
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ratilal
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000818:Animals; D004242:Diving; D004455:Echolocation; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D009038:Motion; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013016:Sound; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D050661:Sperm Whale / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014159:Transducers; D014828:Vocalization, Animal / Q000145:classification; D014867:Water
chemical_list: D014867:Water