2025_proceedings: The impact of pile driving noise on North Atlantic Right Whale detection using coherently beamformed hydrophone arrays

• Session: 13. Pile driving noise -Radiated noise from offshore wind construction
  Organised by: Jonas von Pein, Vincent E. Premus
• Lecture: The impact of pile driving noise on North Atlantic Right Whale detection using coherently beamformed hydrophone arrays [[invited]]
  Paper ID: 2359
  Author(s): Vincent E. Premus, Phil Abbot, Ted Abbot, Eric Illich, John Browning, Vitaly Kmelnitsky, Jake Friese, Aaron Logan
  Presenter: Vincent E. Premus
  Abstract: Measurements of radiated noise from offshore wind construction activity were collected on four bottom-mounted hydrophone arrays during May-August 2024 on the southern New England continental shelf. Calibrated source operations using a J-13 acoustic projector were conducted after completion of construction in September 2024 to quantify North Atlantic right whale (NARW) upcall detector-classifier performance and measure transmission loss (TL) at the site. Comparison of 32-channel array and omni-directional hydrophone detection performance reveals a four-fold detection range advantage for the array in this 17logR TL environment. The results were then used to validate a passive sonar equation-based detection performance model. \n\nThe calibrated source results validate the hypothesis that NARW upcall detection is a narrowband, rather than broadband, detection problem—the effective noise bandwidth (ENBW) employed in the sonar equation is linked to the instantaneous bandwidth of the upcall, estimated to be 12-20 Hz using exemplars from the 2013 St. Andrews database. This finding has important implications for extrapolation of upcall detection performance models to new noise environments. Measurements of pile driving noise power spectra and array gain in third octave bands, as well as beam noise bearing dependence immediately prior to and during pile driving, will be presented. These noise measurements, coupled with the narrowband ENBW definition, are employed to predict upcall detection range in the presence of pile driving.\n\nAnimations of concurrent beam noise distributions from the four arrays, and the associated detection contours, are used to illustrate the spatial and temporal variability of detection performance during offshore wind construction activity. One example of baleen whale detection and localization during pile driving is shown for the case of a humpback whale concurrently detected on two arrays at ranges of 1.5 and 11.7 NM, respectively, yielding a localization solution with sufficient precision to avoid an unnecessary shutdown of construction activity. \n
    Download the full paper
• Corresponding author: Dr Vincent E. Premus
  Affiliation: OASIS, Inc.
  Country: United States