Abstract:

It has been long recognized that acoustic and seismic surveys may harm marine animals. Evidence for hearing effects, tissue damage, and behavioral changes for marine mammals in the presence of high acoustic noise or underwater blasts have been recorded, and similar effects may also endanger sea turtles and sharks. Legislation authorities enforce a human observer on the lookout for marine animals during surveys involving blasts or high acoustic emissions. However, these observations are limited to daylight and can only detect animals on the surface. In this talk, we will discuss a proof-of-concept system for detection of submerged marine animals that can be operated from the same surveying vessel during its operation. Our system employs a train of active high frequency wideband acoustic emissions at power levels, which are safe for marine animals, to form a time-distance matrix of recorder reflections. Using a combination of probabilistic analysis, clustering approach, and machine-learning pattern recognition, we identify mobile targets and differentiate them from clutter and static reflectors. The result is a cost-efficient system that uses only one transceiver for realtime omnidirectional detection. We will introduce results from multiple sea experiments with real animals.

Brief bio:

Prof. Roee Diamant received his PhD from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, in 2013, and his B.Sc. and the M.Sc. degrees from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in 2002 and 2007, respectively. From 2001 to 2009, he worked in Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israel, as a project manager and systems engineer, where he developed a commercial underwater modem with network capabilities and torpedo decoys. In 2015 and 2016, he was a visiting Prof. at the University of Padova, Italy. In 2009, he received the Israel Excellent Worker First Place Award from the Israeli Presidential Institute. In 2010, he received the NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. He now serves as the coordinator of the EU H2020 project SYMBIOSIS (BG-14 track), an associate editor for the IEEE Journal of Ocean Engineering, and as the head of the underwater Acoustic and Navigation Laboratory (ANL) at the Dept. of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. His research interests include underwater acoustic communication, underwater localization and navigation, object detection and classification, and sonar signal processing.