Simulating the morphological feasibility of adaptive beamforming in bats

Abstract

It has been suggested that it is advantageous for bats to adapt their emission beam pattern depending on the situation. Hartley [9] has proposed that bats could steer the direction in which they emit most energy by controlling the phase relationship between the sound emerging from both nostrils. In this paper, we evaluate based on simulations, whether such an adaptive mechanism would be viable in FM bats given their specialized facial morphology. We find that these bats could indeed relocate the center of their emission beam pattern using a phased array mechanism. Furthermore, we list two ways in which this would help bats localizing target objects. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.