Passive stochastic matched filter for Antarctic blue whale call detection

Type Article
Date 2018-08
Language English
Author(s) Bouffaut Lea1, Dreo Richard1, Labat Valerie1, Boudraa Abdel-O.1, Barruol Guilhem2
Affiliation(s) 1 : Ecole Navale, EA3634, Inst Rech, Arts & Metiers ParisTech, BCRM Brest CC600, F-29240 Brest 9, France.
2 : CNRS, Inst Phys Globe Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cite, UMR 7154, 1 Rue Jussieu, F-75238 Paris 05, France.
Source Journal Of The Acoustical Society Of America (0001-4966) (Acoustical Soc Amer Amer Inst Physics), 2018-08 , Vol. 144 , N. 2 , P. 955-965
DOI 10.1121/1.5050520
WOS© Times Cited 6
Abstract

As a first step to Antarctic blue whale (ABW) monitoring using passive acoustics, a method based on the stochastic matched filter (SMF) is proposed. Derived from the matched filter (MF), this filter-based denoising method enhances stochastic signals embedded in an additive colored noise by maximizing its output signal to noise ratio (SNR). These assumptions are well adapted to the passive detection of ABW calls where emitted signals are modified by the unknown impulse response of the propagation channel. A filter bank is computed and stored offline based on a priori knowledge of the signal second order statistics and simulated colored sea-noise. Then, the detection relies on online background noise and SNR estimation, realized using time-frequency analysis. The SMF output is cross-correlated with the signal's reference (SMF thorn MF). Its performances are assessed on an ccean bottom seismometer-recorded ground truth dataset of 845 ABW calls, where the location of the whale is known. This dataset provides great SNR variations in diverse soundscapes. The SMF thorn MF performances are compared to the commonly used MF and to the Z-detector (a subspace detector for ABW calls). Mostly, the benefits of the use of the SMF thorn MF are revealed on low signal to noise observations: in comparison to the MF with identical detection threshold, the false alarm rate drastically decreases while the detection rate stays high. Compared to the Z-detector, it allows the extension of the detection range of similar or equal to 30 km in presence of ship noise with equivalent false discovery rate.

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