DECAF - PMFR Minke Whales - Multiple Sensor - Boing Associations

Original provider:
Density Estimation of Cetaceans from passive Acoustic Fixed sensors (DECAF)

Abstract:
Boing associations refers to the process of identifying the same boing as received on multiple hydrophones. Given the wide spacing of the hydrophones involved in this study, the signal can undergo long range multipath propagation and have different character when received on nearby, and very distant hydrophones. The DECAF minke study utilized 16 northern hydrophones. Associations were done for both an exploratory test case (Marques et al. 2011) on one hour of sample data (six 10-minute files of data), and for two hours of sample data (twelve 10-minute files of data) for the full test case study (Martin et al. 2011 submitted).

The DECAF minke study utilized the 16 northern hydrophones of the BSURE range at PMRF. The sixteen hydrophones are designated 44-51 and 53-60. These hydrophones provide suitable bandwidth for detection of the minke boing vocalization with primary energy around 1.4 kHz.

Note that the reference cited (Marques et al. 2010) used slightly different versions of the association files, and also used exact hydrophone locations rather than the approximate ones given in dataset 1; hence results in that paper will differ slightly from results that would be obtained with analyses of these data. Also, the full data set analysis (ref. Martin et al. submitted) utilized the 14 northernmost phones in the analysis.

Association of boings across the multiple hydrophones was performed by Susan Jarvis (Naval Undersea Warfare Center/Worcester Polytechnic Institute) in the DECAF project.