The energy ratio mapping algorithm: a tool to improve the energy-based detection of odontocete echolocation clicks

The energy ratio mapping algorithm (ERMA) was developed to improve the performance of energy-based detection of odontocete echolocation clicks, especially for application in environments with limited computational power and energy such as acoustic gliders. ERMA systematically evaluates many frequency bands for energy ratio-based detection of echolocation clicks produced by a target species in the presence of the species mix in a given geographic area. To evaluate the performance of ERMA, a Teager-Kaiser energy operator was applied to the series of energy ratios as derived by ERMA. A noise-adaptive threshold was then applied to the Teager-Kaiser function to identify clicks in data sets. The method was tested for detecting clicks of Blainville's beaked whales while rejecting echolocation clicks of Risso's dolphins and pilot whales. Results showed that the ERMA-based detector correctly identified 81.6% of the beaked whale clicks in an extended evaluation data set. Average false-positive detection rate was 6.3% (3.4% for Risso's dolphins and 2.9% for pilot whales).