An autonomous, near-real-time buoy system for automatic detection of North Atlantic right whale calls

Abstract

A moored buoy system for automatic detection of endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW) contacts was developed to provide near-real-time information on the presence of vocalizing whales. The marine components include the WHOI buoy platform (mooring, hydrophone, power system, surface expression, antennae) and Cornell buoy electronics (housing, analog interface hardware, GPS, embedded computer, detection engine, and telemetry hardware). Shore-side Cornell components include telemetry equipment, server hardware and processing software, database, and interfaces for data annotation, access, and visualization. The buoy hardware/software system is capable of capturing and ranking NARW contact candidates as 2s, 2000Hz sampled audio clips. Location, timestamp and other metadata associated with each audio clip are assembled and uploaded via satellite for processing. Human analysts regularly annotate incoming data, resulting in a curated database of NARW detections. Periodic 'health and status' data allow for confirmation that buoys are functional. Regular voltage reporting helps predict required maintenance. Following initial implementations of the system in 2005, a series of successes and failures have led to system improvements in the buoy mooring, electronics, and server components. Deployments have progressed from prototype near-shore units to an operational network continuously monitoring the shipping lanes off Boston to meet ship strike mitigation requirements. © 2010 Acoustical Society of America.