1. QUEphone: An acoustic float for marine mammal monitoring
Haru Matsumoto, Holger Klinck, David K. Mellinger, & Joe Haxel
Oregon State University & NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Lab.
Christopher Jones
Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington
Will discuss hardware & software development of QUEphone and two experiments conducted in AUTEC and SCORE ranges.
5-th international Workshop on Detection, Classification, Localization and Density Estimation of Marine Mammals using Passive Acoustics
Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, OR, USA 8/22-25, 2011 1

2. Acoustic Barge test R/V Ranger
First let me ntroduce you to our team. This is a collborative research between OSU and Univ. of Washington. Chris Jones from UW designed and developed the DSP system.
On your left is the OSU team, Holger Klinck and Dave Mellinger who developed ERMA detection algorithm.
Me. Joe Haxel assisted us operation of the QUEphone in Autec.
Acoustic Barge test
R/V Ranger

3. including Navy’s two M3R ranges
Nov, 2009
Mar, 2010
3 days
June, 2010
5 days
These are the 4 locations we have conducted field tests; 1-st on the acoustic barge on the UW pier in Seattle. Then we join Neil Borg’s Seaglider’s group in Hawaii to test the first open-ocean test off Kona in March, 2010 and tested the two QUEphones for three days there. We learned that system needs to improve signal to noise ratio, communication software as well as logging software.
We conducted another field experiment with Neil’s group in AUTEC range in June, We did 4-th field test in the SCORE range. I went to San Diego to set up the QUEphone there but I did not participate the cruise. Neil Borg’s and Dave Fratantoni were gracious enough to launch and recover the instrument for us.
Jan, 2011
3 days
4 field operations
including Navy’s two M3R ranges

4. QUEphone specs Iridium/GPS antenna Hydrophone
APEX-based acoustic platform with DSP data logger & marine mammal call detector
Blackfin DSP processor BF537CE (500 MHz)
Concurrent detection of calls of specific species
1-ch 125-kHz sigma-delta A/D with 16-bit
128-GB data storage
Battery options : Alkaline weeks
Lithium weeks
Mode of operation
Report once a day at fixed time
Report at constant time interval
Report when # of detections > limit
Max depth : 2000 m
Vertical speed ~8cm/sec
Hydrophone

5. HyHTI92
What inside the float. Blue shaded area is the part we have developed. We use a “tinyboard” from Bluetechnics, which is a 500-MHz DSP plug-in board GB CF card is used as data storage. All computer boards are connected through serial ports with a few digital IO pins.
We use a hydrophone from High Tech Corp with -155dB sensitivity. Pre-amp has a bandwidth of kHz with variable gain.
APEX software was modified significantly in order to communicate with serial devices and to send the detection data and to control the DSP and pre-amp remotely. We also rely on NOAA for data communication with communication protocol compliant to the NOAA data buoy. ?X
Alkaline/Lithium
QUEphone block diagram. Blackfin DSP with 128-GB storage and 2-way communication.

6. QUEphone field test in AUTEC, Bahamas (June, 2010)
Two QUEphones deployed-
Q1(Yel) and Q3(green)
Deployed 6/7-6/11/2010
Drifted 6.5km for 4.5 days
Detector (ERMA detector V.1-
Energy Ratio Mapping Algorithm)
ICI= (Blainville’s beaked whale)
AUTEC experiment with UW Seaglider group.
Deployed two QUEphones, (Q1 and Q3) on 6/7 on the NW corner. Dove to 1000 m and free-profiled for the next 4.5 days.
Both drifted about 6.5km to the east at about 2cm/sec and picked up 4.5 days later.
The picture shows the AUTEC range. Upper pic shows the Q1 and Q3’s drifts relative to the seafloor hydrophones on the range. As they got closer to hydrophone 28, both got more detections.
Tongue of the ocean
R/V Ranger

7. AUTEC M3R vs Q3
This figure shows the performance comparison of Q3 against the M3R’s hyd 28. Again the pink line is the Q3’s distance from the hyd 28. Detections started about 4km. Q3 had more detections than Q1 and was closer to the animal than Q1. On the last day 6/11, it detected the most when it was close to the hyd 28 about 1km.
Q3 and M3R detections in AUTEC. Range (in pink) is an estimates between Q3 and Hyd 28.

8. Q1 and M3R detections in AUTEC. Range is between Q1 and Hyd 28.
AUTEC M3R vs Q1
This gives some idea how Q1 did as far as detecting the beaked whale clicks as compared to the M3R
S hyd 28.
Pink line is the Q1’s distance from hyd 28. This yellow dashed line is the depth record of Q1 vs time. Blue bars are the detections by M3R hyd 28, and yellow bars are the Q1’s detections.
Detection started about 6.5km from hyd 28 on June 7. Q1 detected fewer number of clicks as compared to hyd 28. One reason is the distance. So far away from the sound source, it hardly had any detections. Notice that there is no detection when the platform was in shallow depth. As Q1 gets closer to hyd 28, the number of detections increased and became almost identical on the last day 6/11 when the distance was less than 2km.
Note that the distance is between Q1 and hyd 28, and not the distance to the whale. This figure gives how quephone fared as compared to the M3R. It also gives some sense how close the animal was but does not give the range to the animal.
Q1 and M3R detections in AUTEC. Range is between Q1 and Hyd 28.

9. This histogram compares the day-to-day detections by Q3 and M3R’s hydr 28. The daiy detection counts of Q3 was almost identical as that of M3R hyd 28. Q3 detected approx in total for 4.5 days. Q1 detection was lower, perhaps as a result of lower sensitivity and relative distance from the beaked whales.

10. SCORE Range (January 5-7, 2011)
One QUEphone operation: Q1
Sensitivity: dB re 1V/1µPa
Detector : ERMA detector V.2
DSP turned on/off depth: 300 m
Surface once a day (park depth 1000 m)
About 7 months after the AUTEC test, we participated another validation test in the SCORE range off San Diego.
We have shipped two QUEphones but only one made it safe. One was damaged during the shipment, and deployed only one.
OSU did not participate the cruise because of bank space on R/V Sproul. Neil Bogue of UW kindly deployed and recovered Q3 for us while we were monitoring the progress via satellite in Newport, OR. Neil has no experience in operating the float, and yet with a 1-page instruction, he could deploy and recover the instrument without a hitch. This demonstrated how easy to deploy/recover the float system.
Deployed on 1/5/2011 from the RV Sproul and recovered on 7 about 2.5 days later. During the 2.5 day experiment, the real-time system reported 4 independent encounters.
Almost no changes at all with the system from the AUTEC, except for minor updates in software including a newer operating system. We have adjusted the gain by 6dB so that LSB of analog to digital convertor becomes the about the same level as the ambient noise level at 30kHz.

12. R’ R
Data reprocessed with ICI= for Cuvier’s
9 encounters by ERMA with ICI= Estimated horizontal ranges are based on assumption that whale is at the center of polygon of M3R hydrophones which had detections. M3R hydrophones (yellow squares) are not actual.

13. Q3 offline
Estimated range of detections.
The green line is the Q3’s depth vs time. Where the line is in red was when the hydrophones of M3R were offine for a few hours on Jan 5, and could not get click count at corresponding time.
Yellow bars are the Q3 detections and Jan 5 is the day that detections occurred the most. Blue bars are the range estimated from the Q3’s location and M3R record. We assume that beaked whale was in the center of M3R hydrophone cluster where the detection occurred. This method is not the accurate and error could as large as the array spacing. .
Estimated ranges of detections of Q3 (blue) based on the SCORE M3R records and Q3 path. Average range = ~4.9 km. Total clicks count = 6246.

14. Estimated horizontal ranges of whale from Q3
Q3 manual encounters
Q3 ERMA Detector
(ICI= )
M3R encounters
all 9 8 16
R<5 km 6 5
R<3 km 3 2
Here is the encounter statistics from the SCORE range experiment.
As compared to the AUTEC range, beaked whale population is smaller in the SCORE range. For the range less than 5 km Q3 and M3R had good agreement in detections. Whereas the range over 5 km, detections were less reliable.
Comparison of encounters estimated by manual, ERMA detection methods and M3R records. Horizontal ranges are estimates based on hydrophone clustering approximation.

15. Conclusions Future: Float: Simple to operate – 1-page instruction
Within 5-km range QUEphone’s ERMA detected 83% true positive. Performance is comparable to M3R record.
Optimum ICI in the SCORE: (for Cuviers’)
in the AUTEC: (for Blainville’s)
Future:
FLAC (File compression algorithm), Classifier, Lower power
Newer floats by other companies– smaller, faster vertical speed at lower production cost
Production in large quantity

16. Acknowledgements Sponsors Field/Data support
Office of Naval Research (ONR)-
Mike Weise, Jim Eckman, & Dana Belden
U.S. Navy’s Environmental Readiness Division (N45)-
Frank Stone & Bob Gisiner
Field/Data support
Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC)-
Dave Moretti, Ron Morrissey, Susan Jarvis & Nancy DiMarzio
National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration-
Dave Borg-Breen & Chris Meinig