LONG-TERM GOALS

The long-term goal of this project is to improve model-based passive acoustic methods for tracking marine mammals. When possible, tracking results are used to study marine mammal behavior and bioacoustics. OBJECTIVES The first three objectives of this project are to investigate and implement several specific ideas that have the potential to improve the accuracy, efficiency, and applicability of model-based passive acoustic tracking methods for marine mammals: 1) Invert for sound speed profiles, hydrophone position and hydrophone timing offset in addition to animal position. 2) Improve maximization schemes used in model-based tracking. 3) Use information in addition to arrival times for tracking. The final objective of this project is to: 4) Improve and test approaches to simultaneously track multiple animals simultaneously in cases where it is difficult/impossible to separate and associate calls from individual animals. APPROACH Eva-Marie Nosal is the key individual participating in this work as the principal investigator and main researcher. This project uses existing datasets. The main effort is directed toward data collected at Navy Ranges