Impulsive source separation with application to sperm whale clicks

This paper proposes a new method for impulsive source separation in multi-input single-output (MISO) systems based on impulse spacing. The primary application of the method is the classification of click trains from multiple marine mammals. The impulse spacing can be modeled as a renewal process, so to classify sources, an algorithm is developed to maximize the likelihood of click assignment based on the impulse spacing distributions. A theoretical lower bound on the performance is derived and the algorithm shown to get reasonably close to the bound. Additionally, the algorithm is further extended for use when the impulse spacing distribution parameters are unknown. The algorithm is tested with recordings of sperm whales, and the separation is shown to be accurate.