BtS Challenge: Acoustic Tracking and Course Estimation of a Motorboat

BtS Challenge: Acoustic Tracking and Course Estimation of a Motorboat

Evaluating the course of a motorboat has applications in estimating shipping noise level, detecting vessels entering marine protected areas and monitoring the safe enterence of boats to ports and harbours. This year, BtS challenge will be geared towards the acoustic tracking of small motorboats by passive acoustic monitoring. By deploying arrays of hydrophones the groups will be able to isolate the vessel’s acoustic signature from the ambient noise, while using algorithms such as beamforming and Doppler shift analysis to estimate the motorboat’s bearing, speed, and real-time trajectory. The workshop will be presented as a tutorial, where participates will learn the basics of acoustic tracking as well as the operation of the acoustic tools.

The challenge will be organized in groups of students. Each group will emback a vessel and deploy a software defined pinger emitting acoustic signals that will be prepared by the groups. The signals will be recorded by two receivers (deployed from buoys) as well as a USBL array (deployed from peir). The groups will then process the recorded signals offline to estimate the vessel’s course. Results will be compared to the vessel’s GPS track and groups will be evaluated by accuracy and innovation.