A Review and Inventory of Fixed Autonomous Recorders for Passive Acoustic Monitoring of Marine Mammals

Abstract

Fixed autonomous acoustic recording devices (autonomous recorders [ARs]) are defined as any electronic recording system that acquires and stores acoustic data internally (i.e., without a cable or radio link to transmit data to a receiving station), is deployed semi-permanently underwater (via a mooring, buoy, or attached to the sea floor), and must be retrieved to access the data. More than 30 ARs were reviewed. They varied greatly in capabilities and costs, from small, hand-deployable units for detecting dolphin and porpoise clicks in shallow water to larger units that can be deployed in deep water and can record at high-frequency bandwidths for over a year, but must be deployed from a large vessel. The capabilities and limitations of the systems reviewed herein are discussed in terms of their effectiveness in monitoring and studying marine mammals.

Full text

Aquatic Mammals 2013, 39(2), 216-221, DOI 10.1578/AM.39.2.2013.216
Errata
Aquatic Mammals, 39(2), 2013, pp. 23-53
A Review and Inventory of Fixed Autonomous Recorders
for Passive Acoustic Monitoring of Marine Mammals
Renata S. Sousa-Lima, Thomas F. Norris, Julie N. Oswald, and Deborah P. Fernandes
Changes from incorrect and/or outdated informa-
tion are in brackets. Additional information and
any deletions from text or tables are indicated
below for each page with errata.
p. 23: Abstract, line 9: More than [40] ARs . . . .
pp. 26-28: Table 1
Acousonde: [Replaced the CAP and the B-Probe].
A-TAG: Add Ichikawa et al., 2011 to references.
AULS: DOSITS reference should be deleted and
Rountree et al., 2006; Rountree, 2008, 2011 added
to references.
AURAL-M2: Multi-Electronique (MTE) Inc. [Canada]
C-POD: Add Jefferson et al., 2002; Tregenza
et al., 2007; Brandt et al., 2011; Elliott et al.,
2011; Rayment et al., 2011; Castellote et al., 2012
to references.
HARP: Add S. Wiggins, pers. comm., 16 April
2013 to references.
PAL: Add Miksis-Olds et al., 2007, 2010, 2013;
Miksis-Olds & Parks, 2011 to references.
Additional instruments: EA-SDA14, Embedded
Acoustic recorder and SYLence, Low-power
sound recorder by RTSYS Marine Technologies,
France (L. Simon, pers. comm., 17 April 2013);
DAULS - Deepwater AULS (Rountree, 2011;
Rountree et al., 2012); and Deepwater versions of
SM2M Submersible and Ultrasonic by Wildlife
Acoustics, Inc., USA (S. Snyder, pers. comm.,
12 April 2013).
p. 29: In column 1, 2nd paragraph, line 25: (up to
61 h), uses a [secure digital card (SD)] as storage.
p. 37: In column 2, 2nd paragraph, line 12:
[AUSOMS-D, DASAR, and HARP; Wiggins
et al., 2012)].
p. 38: In column 1, line 3: Instruments like the
[AMAR (J. E. Moloney, pers. comm., 15 April
2013; Table 2) and] the HARP . . .; 2nd paragraph,
line 13: et al., 2010) [and from small boats (e.g.,
5m RHIB; S. Wiggins, pers. comm., 16 April
2013)].; 3rd paragraph, lines 9-10: downloads
to [compact flash]; line 12: requiring access to
[compact flash]; lines 14-15: delete sentence “The
hard drive runs for 6 s every 3 min when data
writing is occurring.” In column 2, line 2: little
over [175 d]; line 6: battery life to [115 d]; lines
7-9: delete “and the efficiency of shutting down
the hard drive between data writing sessions is
lost so that it runs continuously to record the data
flow,”; line 9-10: dropping battery life to [100 d
(H. Cheyne, pers. comm., 12 April 2013).]; 2nd
paragraph, line 1: delete first sentence that refers
to Table 3 which does not exist; line 4: The stan-
dard pop-up [compact flash stores 128 GB]; lines
7-9: delete sentence “The shift from hard drives
to high storage capacity flash cards will take care
of this limitation.”; line 9: The HARP, which can
sample at [320 kHz], has a much larger storage
capacity ([5TB with loss-less data compression
= 10 TB; Wiggins, pers. comm., 16 April 2013]),
than pop-ups; . . . .
p. 39: In column 2, 3rd paragraph, line 8: infor-
mation [about] the sounds; line 10: delete entire
sentence starting with “Nevertheless . . .” and
include C-PODs regularly deliver higher reso-
lution information on the frequency for some
classes of cetacean click than recording systems
achieve. C-PODs operate very wide acceptance
criteria as opposed to recording systems which,
by virtue of their profligate use of memory, are
forced to operate potentially overly narrow cri-
teria of acceptance of sounds (N. Tregenza, pers.
comm., 15 April 2013).

217 Errata
p. 40: In column 1, 3rd paragraph, line 8: The
[Acousonde]; line 10: that can sample up to [464]
kHz, includes [3D compass,] depth . . . .
p. 42: In column 1, lines 6-9: [of] 6,000 m[,
although beyond 2,500 m the acoustic release
may not work, and the user must rely on a timed
release for recovery.]
p. 44: In column 1, 5th paragraph, lines 12-13:
applications, [has been successfully deployed
in demanding tidal and river environments in
JASCO’s High-Flow-Low-Noise mooring frame
(J. E. Moloney, pers. comm., 15 April 2013),] and
also have localization . . . .
p. 48: In column 1, lines 1-5: delete the first
complete sentence starting with “Flash stor-
age . . . .” Acknowledgements section states that
Christopher W. Clark provided comments on this
paper, which is incorrect. Dr. Clark provided com-
ments on an earlier report to JIP (2009) which led
to this review.
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esr00356
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soniferous/soniferous.htm.
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(2012). Is biological sound production important in the
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dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.3662076

218 Sousa-Lima et al.
Table 2. Only instruments for which there were changes (in brackets) are included. The first entry of Acousonde and for ARP (no longer available) should be omitted. The LARS (HF
and LF) and T-POD were superseded by DSG-Ocean and C-POD, respectively.
Instrument
Dimensions
Maximum
deployment
depth (m)
Maximum
deployment
time
Sampling
frequency
(Hz)
Power supply and
energy capacity
Data storage
Data format
Microprocessor
Examples of
species studied
AcousondeTM
3A (tag)
and
AcousondeTM
3B (tag)
22.1 × 3.2 cm [without
float]
[22.4 × 7.9 cm with float]
3.000 14 d [25 (low-power
channel)]
[464,000 (high-
frequency
channel)]
[A-cell lithium
battery]
[128 GB in 4 MicroSD
storage-card slots]
[64 GB in 2 MicroSD
storage-card slots]
2 acoustic channels,
MT files, depth,
tag temperature,
3-D acceleration/
tilt, ambient light
level, [3-axis
compass]
ARM9 with an ARM
vector floating point
(VFP) coprocessor
(www.arm.com)
208 MHz
[Balaenoptera
musculus,
Eschrichtius
robustus,
Megaptera
novaeangliae,
Mirounga
leonina, and
Stenella
attenuata]
AMAR G3 132.1 × 40.4 cm;
Diameter: 16.5 cm
250 (shallow
AMAR)
2,500 (deep
AMAR)
1 y dependent
on input channel
configuration,
duty cycle
settings, and
attached battery
packs
[16-bit channel
1- 687.5 Ksps, 8
24-bit channels:
1 to 120 Ksps,
standard, fitted
M8E hydrophone
specified for
1-150,000]
DC power from
battery pack (7 to
16 Vdc) or PoE
three standard
battery packs
available (short,
medium and
long)
Solid State storage.
256 GB, expandable to
1,796 GB
Acoustic data as
WAV formatted
files, non-acoustic
data as CSV files
NA [Pinnipeds,
baleen and
toothed whales,
delphinids,
porpoises, and
manatees]
A-[TAG]
(tag)
21 mm diameter and
108 mm length
200 75 d 55,000-
235,000
Lithium battery
cell
128 MB flash memory Click intensity,
timing, and the
difference in time
arrival between two
hydrophones
CPU
(PIC18F6620;
Microchip, Detroit,
MI, USA)
Neophocaena
phocaenoides
asiaeorientalis
[and Dugong
dugon]
AURAL-M2 With 16 batteries: 14.6 ×
90 cm and 20kg; with 64
batteries: 14.6 × 120 cm
and 32 kg; with 128
batteries: 14.6 × 178 cm
and 49 kg
300 1 y depending
on setting
parameters
[128-
32,768]
Alkaline D cell
or battery pack
Compact flash 1GB
or more and [640 GB
double hard drive kit]
WAV files,
temperature, and
depth
33 MIPS Dallas
DS89C450 Ultra
High Speed Flash
Microcontroller
Whales in the
St. Lawrence
River

219
Instrument
Dimensions
Maximum
deployment
depth (m)
Maximum
deployment
time
Sampling
frequency
(Hz)
Power supply and
energy capacity
Data storage
Data format
Microprocessor
Examples of
species studied
EAR 10.16 cm diameter by
60 cm long cylinder
[999] 1 y [2 - 80,000
(max)]
Alkaline battery
pack
[320 GB HDD] Binary files Persistor CF2
microprocessor, a
1 GB compact flash
card, a Persistor
BigIDEA IDE
adapter
Stenella
longirostris,
[M. novaeangliae,
Delphinapterus
leucas,
Balaenoptera
physalus, Orcinus
orca, Mesoplodon
sp., snapping
shrimp, and coral
reef fish]
HARP
[Standard seafloor package
is 1.5 m × 1.5 m × 1.5 m
but can be configured
into large trawl-proof
subsurface moorings or
small moorings deployed
by hand from a small
boat where the pressure
housings (22.9 cm
diameter × 81.3 cm long
tubes) are fastened to a line
connecting the flotation
and release/weight]
~ 7,000 [300 d at
200 kHz
continuous
recording and
loss-less data
compression]
[10,000-320,000] Alkaline or
lithium battery
pack
[16 × 320 GB HDD =
5 TB data storage × 2
compression = 10 TB
effective storage]
XWAV time series
files
32-bit, 20 MHz
microcontroller from
Motorola (www.
motorola.com)
[All baleen
whales, all
odontocetes,
and fish (i.e.,
bandwidth
from 10 to
160,000 Hz)]
OceanBase [11 cm diameter × 45 cm] [500] [Over 1 y] [200-96,000] Batteries SSD 128 GB
expandable to
1 TB or more
[WAV, flat] [RISC] Cetaceans, fish,
sea state, and
vessels
OceanPod [11 cm diameter × 45 cm] [2,000] [0.5 to 1 y
depending on
sampling rate]
[200-96,000] [Alkaline or
lithium battery]
[Four SD slots of any
memory size]
[WAV, flat] [RISC] Cetaceans, fish,
sea state, and
vessels
PAL 76.2 cm long and 15.2 cm
in diameter
[2,000] 1 y [0-100,000] Alkaline D cells 2 GB flash memory
card
Binary restored to
time series (sound
bites)
Tattletale Model 8 Orcinus orca,
dolphins
[manatees,
ribbon seals,
bearded seals,
walrus, bowhead
whales, and right
whales]
Errata

220
Instrument
Dimensions
Maximum
deployment
depth (m)
Maximum
deployment
time
Sampling
frequency
(Hz)
Power supply and
energy capacity
Data storage
Data format
Microprocessor
Examples of
species studied
Pop-up or
MARU
[Single sphere: 51 cm
high and 58 cm diameter]
[Double sphere:
110 cm high and
58 cm diameter]
[2,500
(acoustic
release limit);
6,000 (system
limit)]
[12-175 d
depending on
sampling rate;
12-370 d
depending on
sampling rate]
[2,000-
64,000]
[Alkaline D cells,
149 Wh]
[Alkaline D cells,
371 Wh]
[128 GB compact
flash]
[Binary fault-
tolerant format,
post processed to
AIFF]
[Tattletale Model 8
(Onset Computer
Corporation)]
[Balaenoptera
musculus,
B. physalus,
B. bonaerensis,
B. brydei,
M. novaeangliae,
Eubalaena
glaciali, and
Balaena
mysticetus]
RASP [C12] [9 × 25 cm] [250] [Several weeks] Up to 96,000 [Lithium primary
battery]
[32 GB microSD
memory]
[WAV and MP3] [Yamaha C24
recorder, with built-in
recording cycle (one
slot per 24 h)]
Whales and
dolphins
RASP
[C12 II]
[9 × 28 cm] [250] [Several weeks] Up to 96,000 [Lithium primary
battery]
[32 GB microSD
memory]
[WAV and MP3] [Modified Yamaha
W24 or Olympus
LS-3, with built-in
recording cycle (one
slot per 24 h or three
slots per 24 h)]
Whales and
dolphins
RUDARTM 17.8 cm; 36.4 kg or
45.5 kg with batteries
[500, 1,500,
or 3,500]
[Depends on
sample rate
chosen and
number of
battery packs]
[Selectable
sampling rates
from 4 to 750,000]
[Alkaline
batteries]
[250 GB to 1.5 TB
hard disks]
Up to 4 hydrophone
channels, WAV
[Sound Technology
ST500 mobile data
recorder and sound
level monitor]
Cetaceans
µRUDARTM [1 hydrophone: 29 cm long
× 10 cm diameter;
2 hydrophones: 37 cm
long × 10 cm diameter]
[250] Up to 61 h
depending on
sample rate
chosen
[44,100-96,000] Rechargeable
Li-Ion batteries
[64 GB SD flash
memory card]
[Up to 2
hydrophone
channels, WAV or
MP3]
[Zoom H1 digital
recorder]
Cetaceans
nRUDARTM [26 cm long × 8 cm
diameter]
[300] [Up to 26 h
depending on
sample rate and
battery chosen]
[44,100-96,000] [Single AA
alkaline or
lithium battery]
[32 GB SD flash
memory card]
[1 hydrophone,
WAV, or MP3]
[Zoom H1 digital
recorder]
[Cetaceans]
Sousa-Lima et al.

221
Instrument
Dimensions
Maximum
deployment
depth (m)
Maximum
deployment
time
Sampling
frequency
(Hz)
Power supply and
energy capacity
Data storage
Data format
Microprocessor
Examples of
species studied
SM2M
[Submersible]
16.5 cm diameter ×
79.4 cm long
150 [104 d
continuous
recording]
4,000-
96,000
LSD NiMH,
alkaline,
or lithium
manganese D-cell
batteries
128 GB with SDHC or
512 GB with SDXC
[WAV audio
with up to two
hydrophone
channels,
RMS peak and
ambient level log,
temperature log]
NA [Marine
mammals and
fish; noise
logging from
below sea state
0 up to 240 dB
SPL]
SM2M
Ultrasonic
16.5 cm diameter ×
79.4 cm long
150 [42 d
continuous
recording]
4,000-
384,000
LSD NiMH,
alkaline,
or lithium
manganese D-cell
batteries
128 GB with SDHC or
512 GB with SDXC
[WAV audio
with up to two
hydrophone
channels,
RMS peak and
ambient level log,
temperature log]
NA [Marine
mammals and
fish; noise
logging from
below sea state
0 up to 240 dB
SPL]
[SM2M
Deepwater]
16.5 cm diameter ×
148 cm long
1,500 208 d
(Submersible)
or 84 d
(Ultrasonic)
for continuous
recording
4,000-
96,000
LSD NiMH,
alkaline,
or lithium
manganese D-cell
batteries
128 GB with SDHC or
512 GB with SDXC
WAV audio with up
to two hydrophone
channels,
RMS peak and
ambient level log,
temperature log
NA Marine
mammals and
fish; noise
logging from
below sea state
0 up to 240 dB
SPL
[EA-SDA14] 12 cm diameter × 32 cm
length; 5 kg with
batteries
700 Over 1 y
depending
on setting
parameters
39,625-
2,5000,000
continuous
recording
Different
lithium batteries
configurations
6 to 18 D cell
cases; additional
24 D cells
rechargeable
external battery
packs
2,000 GB on hard
drive and/or 128 GB
SDHC and/or 600 GB
SSD
24 bits raw WAV
files on 4 channels
with nanoseconds
synchronization,
celerity,
temperature, depth,
orientation, GPS
time-stamped
32 bits ARM &
Digital Signal
Processor (DSP)
All odontocetes,
including sperm
whales (Physeter
macrocephalus)
and porpoises;
benthos
[SYLence] 12 cm diameter × 55 cm
length; 8 kg with
batteries
700 Over 1 y
depending
on setting
parameters
24,000-192,000
continuous
recording
Lithium D-cell
batteries
2,000 GB on hard
drive and/or 128 GB
16 or 24 bits
WAV files on
1-2 channels,
temperature,
pressure,
orientation
NA Odontocetes
Errata