Sperm Whales Records Indexation Using Passive Acoustics Localization

Abstract

This paper focuses on the robust indexing of sperm whale hydrophone recordings based on a set of features extracted from a real-time passive underwater acoustic tracking algorithm for multiple emitting whales. In past years, interest in marine mammals has increased leading to the development of robust and real-time systems. Acoustic localization permits to study whales' behavior in deep water (several hundreds of meters) without interfering with the environment. In this paper, we recall and use a real-time multiple tracking algorithm recently developed, which provides a localization of one or several sperm whales. Given the position coordinates, we are able to analyse different features such as speed, energy of the clicks, Inter-Click-Interval (ICI).... These features allow us to construct different markers which lead to the indexing and structuring the audio files. Thus, the behavior study is facilitated choosing and accessing the corresponding index in the audio file. The complete indexing algorithm is processed on real data from the NUWC (Naval Undersea Warfare Center of the US Navy) and the AUTEC (Atlantic Undersea Test & Evaluation Center - Bahamas). Our model is validated by similar results from the US Navy (NUWC) and SOEST (School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology) Hawaii university labs in a single whale case. Finally, as an illustration, we index a single whale sound file thanks to the extracted whale's features provided by the tracking, and we present an example of an XML script structuring it.