Underwater, the sound is propagated very far and with low propagation loss building a very noisy acoustic environment, called soundscape. Therefore, automatic underwater sound detection and classification is an essential tool for ocean monitoring through autonomous underwater gliders. Within the context of this use case, this kind of glider is used to carry on an acoustic payload over several weeks and tens of kilometers, which performs onboard acoustic signal processing for a wide range of applications. For instance, it could be marine traffic monitoring for maritime services, warship/submarine detection and classification for submarine warfare or even marine mammals/fishes classification and inventory. However, all these applications must be handled under very restricted power consumption (of order of magnitude of 1W) and extremely limited communication with shore.
ALSEAMAR, in collaboration with CEA, STGNB and Synsense, develops hardware/software solutions to be integrated onto unmanned underwater acoustic systems. In particular, the best candidate for this task is the SeaExplorer glider which is a very-long endurance underwater drone with very low power consumption.