Towards Harmonious Coexistence:A Bioacoustic-Driven Animal-Computer Interaction System for Preventing Ship Collisions with North Atlantic Right Whales

The North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW) population is currently teetering on the brink of extinction, with a mere approximate count of 350 individuals remaining. These animals have been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1970. Today, the survival of right whales is imperiled primarily du...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Tenth International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction
Main Authors: Erceg, Mirjana, Palamas, Georgios
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Association for Computing Machinery 2023
Subjects:
animal-computer interaction
aquatic mammal detection
bioacoustic signatures
bioacoustics
biodiversity conservation
internet of things
neural networks
North Atlantic right whale
passive acoustic monitoring
whale calls
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://vbn.aau.dk/da/publications/62708fec-c633-4643-8d2e-14d327cdec7a
https://doi.org/10.1145/3637882.3637890
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85186652386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
Description
Summary:The North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW) population is currently teetering on the brink of extinction, with a mere approximate count of 350 individuals remaining. These animals have been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1970. Today, the survival of right whales is imperiled primarily due to vessel collisions, net entanglements, and habitat degradation. This paper presents a novel system of animal-computer interaction founded on the identification of bioacoustic signatures. Initially, NARWs' vocalizations were transformed into spectrograms, which were subsequently inputted into a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). To enhance robustness against environmental noise, techniques such as time warping, frequency masking, and time masking were employed. The outcomes of our study indicate that the proposed system holds potential for establishing a closed-loop interaction framework between vessels and NARWs. This framework could enable vessels to adapt their speed or avoid routes frequented by NARWs. Furthermore, this article discusses the potential benefits of employing networked sensors, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to augment NARW monitoring and data collection efforts.

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