title: Automated detection of Antarctic blue whale calls.
abstract: This paper addresses the problem of automated detection of Z-calls emitted by Antarctic blue whales (B. m. intermedia). The proposed solution is based on a subspace detector of sigmoidal-frequency signals with unknown time-varying amplitude. This detection strategy takes into account frequency variations of blue whale calls as well as the presence of other transient sounds that can interfere with Z-calls (such as airguns or other whale calls). The proposed method has been tested on more than 105 h of acoustic data containing about 2200 Z-calls (as found by an experienced human operator). This method is shown to have a correct-detection rate of up to more than 15% better than the extensible bioacoustic tool package, a spectrogram-based correlation detector commonly used to study blue whales. Because the proposed method relies on subspace detection, it does not suffer from some drawbacks of correlation-based detectors. In particular, it does not require the choice of an a priori fixed and subjective template. The analytic expression of the detection performance is also derived, which provides crucial information for higher level analyses such as animal density estimation from acoustic data. Finally, the detection threshold automatically adapts to the soundscape in order not to violate a user-specified false alarm rate.
authors.affiliation: Institut Mines-Telecom, Telecom Bretagne, Unités Mixtes de Recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 6285, Laboratoire des Sciences et Techniques de l'Information, de la Communication et de la Connaissance, Technopôle Brest Iroise, CS 83818, 29238 Brest Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Francois-Xavier
authors.initials: FX
authors.lastname: Socheleau
authors.affiliation: University of Brest, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire Domaines Océaniques, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, 29280 Plouzané, France.
authors.forename: Emmanuelle
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Leroy
authors.affiliation: Institut Mines-Telecom, Telecom Bretagne, Unités Mixtes de Recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 6285, Laboratoire des Sciences et Techniques de l'Information, de la Communication et de la Connaissance, Technopôle Brest Iroise, CS 83818, 29238 Brest Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Andres Carvallo
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Pecci
authors.affiliation: École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées de Bretagne, 2 Rue Francois Verny, 29806 Brest Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Flore
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Samaran
authors.affiliation: École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées de Bretagne, Unités Mixtes de Recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 6285, Laboratoire des Sciences et Techniques de l'Information, de la Communication et de la Connaissance, 2 Rue Francois Verny, 29806 Brest Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Julien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bonnel
authors.affiliation: University of Brest, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire Domaines Océaniques, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, 29280 Plouzané, France.
authors.forename: Jean-Yves
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Royer
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D050616:Balaenoptera / Q000502:physiology*; D004867:Equipment Design; D008386:Marine Biology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013045:Species Specificity; D014160:Transducers, Pressure; D014828:Vocalization, Animal