The performance of methods based on the fractional Fourier transform for detecting marine mammal vocalizations

The analysis of cetacean vocalizations is considered using Fourier-based techniques that employ chirp functions in their decomposition. In particular, the paper considers a short-time methods based on the fractional Fourier transform for detecting frequency modulated narrow-band signals, such as dolphin whistles, and compares this to the classical short-time Fourier methods. The fractional Fourier technique explored computes transforms associated with a range of chirp rates and automatically selects the rate for the final analysis. This avoids the need for prior knowledge of signal's chirp rate. An analysis is presented that details the performance of both methods as signal detectors and allows one to determine their detection thresholds. These thresholds are then used to measure the detectability of synthetic signals. This principle is then extended to measure performance on a set of recordings of narrow-band vocalizations from a range of cetacean species.