Acoustic Seaglider (trademark) for Beaked Whale Detection

This is the final report on the Office of Naval Research (ONR) -sponsored program entitled Acoustic Seaglider(trademark) for Beaked Whale Detection. This research at the Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington (APL-UW) was part of the ONR Passive Autonomous Acoustic Monitoring (PAAM) of marine mammals program. Research was focused on development and operation of a passive acoustic system for the buoyancy-driven autonomous underwater vehicle Seaglider, capable of autonomous detection and classification of beaked whales. The Seaglider/PAAM system consists of a single omnidirectional hydrophone, an APL-UW designed and built electronics board, and operating software. Colleagues D. Mellinger and H. Klinck at Oregon State University developed detectors and provided scientific guidance. Four major field programs were executed, including deployments at the Navy ranges AUTEC and SCORE. Beaked whale detections ranges of up to four km were noted at AUTEC. Further development of hardware and software continues under a follow-on award from ONR. The original document contains color images.