Author (s)
Le Penru Neel 1, Borrelli Alessia 2, Heath Becky 3, Ewers Robert 4, Sethi Sarab 5, Pincinali Lorenzo 6
Affiliation
1 Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London UK
2 Department of Civin and, Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London UK
3 Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK
4 Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London UK
5 Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK
6 Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London UK
Publication date
2023
Abstract
Microphone arrays and direction of arrival estimation algorithms have become increasingly capable and accessible, furthering EcoAcoustics / Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) practitioners’ capacity to analyse the spatial features of natural soundscapes and thereby yield richer insights into biodiversity and ecosystem health. However, there is a need for standardised, repeatable methods to comparatively evaluate these technologies. We developed a platform to this end, consisting of a 25-channel spherical loudspeaker array through which spatial natural soundscapes captured with a 19-capsule microphone (Zylia ZM-1) can be accurately reproduced and repeatedly re-recorded by spatial PAM devices under evaluation. Here, we first explore how well this lab-based platform can reproduce spatial natural soundscapes, and then present results from a trial of using the platform to evaluate a 6-microphone PAM device developed in our lab. We achieve this by comparing a range of typical ecoacoustic analyses between the field- and lab-based recordings. Further, we specifically use the platform to investigate how device orientation impacts the classification and localisation of avian calls with software tools BirdNET and HARKBird, respectively. These initial outcomes suggest our test platform can provide key insights into the tuning and performance of spatial PAM devices and ecological analyses of their data. We aim for this platform and approach to be further validated and adopted, to inform the selection of spatial PAM technologies and ease collaboration between their users globally.
Full paper
https://dael.euracoustics.org/confs/fa2023/data/articles/000339.pdf
Keywords
spatial ecoacoustics, passive acoustic monitoring, microphone arrays, bioacoustics