Passive acoustic detection and localization of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) in the tongue of the ocean

A set of algorithms for real-time detection and localization of vocalizing marine mammals has been developed as part of the Marine Mammal Monitoring on Navy Ranges (M3R) program. These algorithms work on a broad variety of vocalizations including sperm whale clicks. The detection algorithm is a two stage process utilizing a binary thresholded FFT as the first stage. The second stage examines the FFT output to determine whether a click is present in a given FFT window. Detected clicks are split out of the data stream and sent to a data association algorithm called a scanning sieve. Time differences of arrival (TDOAs) are calculated which are then fed into 2D and 3D hyperbolic localization algorithms. Software written to implement the algorithms was used to process a data set consisting of sperm whale vocalizations provided as part of the 2nd International Workshop on Detection and Localization of Marine Mammals using Passive Acoustics. Real-time detection and localization results from the data set are provided, along with a detailed description of the algorithms.