Laboratory for Ocean Acoustics and Ecosystem Sensing

Current Research Areas (and Selected Publications):

Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (POAWRS)

Ratilal, P., Seri, S.G., Mohebbi-Kalkhoran, H., Zhu, C., Schinault, M., Radermacher, M. and Makris, N.C., Continental Shelf-scale Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing of Marine Ecosystems, Dynamics and Directional Soundscapes: Sensing Whales, Fish, Ships and other Sound Producers in near Real-Time, IEEE OCEANS 2022, Hampton Roads, VA, USA, pp. 1-7, 2022. doi: 10.1109/OCEANS47191.2022.9977054.
H.A. Garcia, C. Zhu, M.E. Schinault, A.I. Kaplan, N.O. Haandegard, O.R. Godoe, H. Ahonen, N.C. Makris, D. Wang, W. Huang and P. Ratilal, Temporal-spatial, spectral and source level distributions of fin whale vocalisations in the Norwegian Sea observed with a coherent hydrophone, ICES Journal of Marine Science, Vol. 76(1), 268-283, (2018). doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsy127
D. Wang, H.Garcia, W. Huang, D.D. Tran, A.D. Jain, D.H. Yi, Z. Gong, J.M. Jech, O.R. Godoe, N.C. Makris and P. Ratilal, "Vast assembly of vocal marine mammals from diverse species on fish spawning ground," Nature, doi:10.1038/nature16960, 02 March (2016).
W. Huang, D. Wang, H. Garcia, O.R. Godoe and P. Ratilal, " Continental Shelf-Scale Passive Acoustic Detection and Characterization of Diesel-Electric Ships Using a Coherent Hydrophone Array," Remote Sensing, 9(8), 772, 27 pages (2017).
S. G. Seri, C. Zhu, M. Schinault, H. Garcia, N. O. Handegard and P. Ratilal, Long Range Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (POAWRS) of Seismo-acoustic Airgun Signals Received on a Coherent Hydrophone Array, OCEANS 2019 MTS/IEEE SEATTLE, Seattle, WA, USA, pp. 1-8 (2019). doi: 10.23919/OCEANS40490.2019.8962739

Development of Ocean Acoustic Sensing Hardware and Software Systems

Schinault, M.E., Seri, S.G., Radermacher, M.K., Mohebbi-Kalkhoran, H., Zhu, C., Makris, N.C. and Ratilal, P., "Development of A Large-Aperture 160-Element Coherent Hydrophone Array System for Instantaneous Wide Area Ocean Acoustic Sensing," IEEE OCEANS 2022, Hampton Roads, VA, USA, pp. 1-9, 2022. doi: 10.1109/OCEANS47191.2022.9977226.
Radermacher, M.K., Schinault, M.E., Seri, S.G. and Ratilal, P., Research and Design for the Power Hierarchy of a 160-Element Linear Towable Ocean Acoustic Coherent Hydrophone Array, IEEE OCEANS 2022, Hampton Roads, VA, USA, pp. 1-7, 2022. doi: 10.1109/OCEANS47191.2022.9977087.
Mohebbi-Kalkhoran, H., Schinault, M., Makris, N.C. and Ratilal, P., Integrated computing system for real-time data processing, storage and communication with large aperture 160-element coherent hydrophone array, OCEANS 2022, Hampton Roads, VA, USA, pp. 1-9, 2022. doi: 10.1109/OCEANS47191.2022.9977064.

Census of Marine Life: Fish and Marine Mammals

Seri, S.G., Schinault, M.E., Penna, S.M., Zhu, C., Sivle, L.D., de Jong, K., Handegard, N.O. and Ratilal, P., Characterizing coastal cod vocalization using a towed hydrophone array, ICES Journal of Marine Science, 80(6), pp.1727-1745 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsad104
D. Wang, H.Garcia, W. Huang, D.D. Tran, A.D. Jain, D.H. Yi, Z. Gong, J.M. Jech, O.R. Godoe, N.C. Makris and P. Ratilal, "Vast assembly of vocal marine mammals from diverse species on fish spawning ground," Nature, doi:10.1038/nature16960, 02 March (2016).
Gong Z, Jain AD, Tran D, Yi DH, Wu F, Zorn A, Ratilal P and Makris N, "Ecosystem Scale Acoustic Sensing Reveals Humpback Whale Behavior Synchronous with Herring Spawning Processes and Re-Evaluation Finds No Effect of Sonar on Humpback Song Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine in Fall 2006," PLoS ONE 9(10): e104733. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0104733 (2014).
M. Andrews, Z. Gong and P. Ratilal, "Effects of multiple scattering, attenuation and dispersion in waveguide sensing of fish," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, 1253-1271 (2011).
Z. Gong, M. Andrews, S. Jagannathan, R. Patel, N.C. Makris, and P. Ratilal, "Low frequency target strength and abundance of shoaling Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) in the Gulf of Maine during the Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing 2006 Experiment," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 127, 104-123 (2010).
M. Andrews, Z. Gong and P. Ratilal, "High-resolution population density imaging of random scatterers with the matched filter scattered field variance," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Vol. 126, 1057-1068 (2009).
N. Makris, P. Ratilal, S. Jagannathan, Z. Gong, M. Andrews, I. Bertsatos, O. Godoe, R. Nero, M. Jech, "Critical Population Density Triggers Rapid Formation of Vast Oceanic Fish Shoals," Science, Vol. 323, No. 5922, 1734-1737 (March 27, 2009).
S. Jagannathan, I. Bersatos, D. Symonds, T. Chen, H. Nia, A. Jain, M. Andrews, Z. Gong, R. Nero, L. Ngor, M. Jech, O. Godo, S. Lee, P. Ratilal, and N. Makris, "Ocean acoustic waveguide remote sensing (OAWRS) of marine ecosystems," Invited paper, Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser., Vol. 395, 137-160 (2009).
N.C. Makris, P. Ratilal, D.T. Symonds, S. Jagannathan, S. Lee, and R. Nero, "Fish Population and Behavior Revealed by Instantaneous Continental-Shelf-Scale Imaging," Science, Volume 311, 660-663 February 3, (2006).

Array and Signal Processing for Ocean Acoustics

D. Wang and P. Ratilal, "Angular Resolution Enhancement Provided by Nonuniformly-Spaced Linear Hydrophone Arrays in Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing," Remote Sensing, 9(10), 1036, 16 pages (2017). doi:10.3390/rs9101036
D. Wang, W. Huang, H. Garcia and P. Ratilal, “Vocalization Source Level Distributions and Pulse Compression Gains of Diverse Baleen Whale Species in the Gulf of Maine,” Remote Sensing, 8(11), 881, 22 pages (2016).

Ship Detection, Localization and Characterization from Long Ranges

W. Huang, D. Wang, H. Garcia, O.R. Godø and P. Ratilal, " Continental Shelf-Scale Passive Acoustic Detection and Characterization of Diesel-Electric Ships Using a Coherent Hydrophone Array," Remote Sensing, 9(8), 772, 27 pages (2017).
C. Zhu, H. Garcia, A. Kaplan, M. Schinault, N.O. Handegard, O.R. Godø, *W. Huang and P. Ratilal, Detection, Localization and Classification of Multiple Mechanized Ocean Vessels over Continental-Shelf Scale Regions with Passive Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing, 10(11), 1699, 26 pages (2018). doi:10.3390/rs10111699

Pattern Analysis and Classification

Garcia, H.A., Couture, T., Galor, A., Topple, J.M., Huang, W., Tiwari, D. and Ratilal, P., Comparing Performances of Five Distinct Automatic Classifiers for Fin Whale Vocalizations in Beamformed Spectrograms of Coherent Hydrophone Array, Remote Sensing, 12(2), p.326, (2020). doi: 10.3390/rs12020326<\li>
Mohebbi-Kalkhoran, H., Zhu, C., Schinault, M. and Ratilal, P., 2019, December. Classifying Humpback Whale Calls to Song and Non-song Vocalizations using Bag of Words Descriptor on Acoustic Data, In 2019 18th IEEE International Conference On Machine Learning And Applications (ICMLA) (pp. 865-870). IEEE (2019). Doi: 10.1109/ICMLA.2019.00150
S. Jagannathan, B. Horn, P. Ratilal and N. Makris, "Force estimation and prediction from time-varying density images," IEEE Trans. Pattern Analysis & Machine Intelligence, Vol. 33, 1132-1146, (2011).
W. Huang, D. Wang and P. Ratilal, "Diel and Spatial Dependence of Humpback Song and Non-Song Vocalizations in Fish Spawning Ground," Remote Sensing, Vol. 8(9), 712, 22 pages (2016).

Transmission of Sound Through a Random Ocean Waveguide

D. Tran, M. Andrews and P. Ratilal, "Probability Distribution for Energy of Saturated Broadband Ocean Acoustic Transmission: Results from Gulf of Maine 2006 Experiment," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 132, 3659-2672 (2012).
M. Andrews, T. Chen and P. Ratilal, "Empirical dependence of acoustic transmission scintillation statistics on bandwidth, frequency and range in New Jersey continental shelf," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125, 111-124 (2009).
T. Chen, P. Ratilal and N. C. Makris, "Temporal coherence after multiple forward scattering through random three-dimensional inhomogeneities in an ocean waveguide," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 124, 2812-2822 (2008).
T. Chen, P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, "Mean and variance of the forward field propagated through three-dimensional random internal waves in a continental-shelf waveguide," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3560-3574 (2005).
P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, "Mean and covariance of the forward field propagated through a stratified ocean waveguide with three-dimensional random inhomogeneities," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 118, 3532-3559 (2005).

Scattering from Objects in an Ocean Waveguide

S. Jagannathan, E. Kusel, P. Ratilal, N. Makris, "Scattering from extended targets in range-dependent fluctuating ocean-waveguides with clutter from theory and experiments," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 132, 680-693 (2012).
M. Andrews, Z. Gong and P. Ratilal, "Effects of multiple scattering, attenuation and dispersion in waveguide sensing of fish," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 130, 1253-1271 (2011).
M. Andrews, Z. Gong and P. Ratilal, "High-resolution population density imaging of random scatterers with the matched filter scattered field variance," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Vol. 126, 1057-1068 (2009).
E. T. Kusel and P. Ratilal, "Effect of incident field refraction on scattered field from vertically extended cylindrical targets in range-dependent ocean waveguides," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Vol 125, 1930-1936 (2009).
A. Galinde, N. Donabed, M. Andrews, S. Lee, N. C. Makris and P. Ratilal, "Range-dependent waveguide scattering model calibrated for bottom reverberation in a continental shelf environments," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 123, 1270-1281 (2008).
P. Ratilal, Y. Lai and N.C. Makris, "Validity of the Sonar Equation and Babinet's Principle in a Stratified Medium," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 112, 1797-1816 (2002).
P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, "Extinction theorem for object scattering in a stratified medium," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 110, 2924-2945 (2001).
N.C. Makris and P. Ratilal, "A unified model for reverberation and submerged object scattering in a stratified ocean waveguide," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 108, 909-941 (2001).

Passive Localization of Acoustic Sources in an Ocean Waveguide

Z. Gong, D. Tran and P. Ratilal, "Comparing passive source localization and tracking approaches with a towed horizontal receiver array in an ocean waveguide," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 134, 3705-3720 (2013).
Z. Gong, P. Ratilal and N.C. Makris, "Simultaneous localization of multiple broadband non-impulsive acoustic sources in an ocean waveguide using the array invariant," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 138(5), 2649-2667 (2015).
I. Bertsatos, M. Zanolin, P. Ratilal, T. Chen, and N. Makris, "General second-order covariance of Gaussian maximum likelihood estimates applied to passive source localization in fluctuating waveguides," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Vol. 128, 2635-2651 (2010).
A. Thode, M. Zanolin, E. Naftali, I. Ingram, P. Ratilal, and N. C. Makris, "Necessary conditions for a maximum likelihood estimate to become asymptotically unbiased and attain the Cramer-Rao lower bound. II. Range and depth localization of a sound source in an ocean waveguide," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 112, 1890-1910 (2002).

Continental Shelf-scale Active/Passive Sensing

Z. Gong, M. Andrews, S. Jagannathan, R. Patel, N.C. Makris, and P. Ratilal, "Lowfrequency target strength and abundance of shoaling Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) in the Gulf of Maine during the Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing 2006 Experiment," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 127, 104-123 (2010).
S. Jagannathan, I. Bersatos, D. Symonds, T. Chen, H. Nia, A. Jain, M. Andrews, Z. Gong, R. Nero, L. Ngor, M. Jech, O. Godo, S. Lee, P. Ratilal, and N. Makris, "Ocean acoustic waveguide remote sensing (OAWRS) of marine ecosystems," Invited paper, Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser., Vol. 395, 137-160 (2009).
P. Ratilal, Y. Lai, D.T. Symonds, L.A. Ruhlmann, J. Goff, C.W. Holland, J.R. Preston, E.K. Scheer, M.T. Garr and N.C. Makris, "Long range acoustic imaging of the Continental Shelf Environment: The Acoustic Clutter Reconnaisance Experiment 2001," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117, 1977-1998 (2005).

Marine Mammal Acoustics

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D. Wang, H.Garcia, W. Huang, D.D. Tran, A.D. Jain, D.H. Yi, Z. Gong, J.M. Jech, O.R. Godoe, N.C. Makris and P. Ratilal, " Vast assembly of vocal marine mammals from diverse species on fish spawning ground," Nature, doi:10.1038/nature16960, 02 March (2016).
Gong Z, Jain AD, Tran D, Yi DH, Wu F, Zorn A, Ratilal P and Makris N, "Ecosystem Scale Acoustic Sensing Reveals Humpback Whale Behavior Synchronous with Herring Spawning Processes and Re-Evaluation Finds No Effect of Sonar on Humpback Song Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine in Fall 2006," PLoS ONE 9(10): e104733. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0104733 (2014).
D. Tran, W. Huang, A. Bohn, D. Wang, Z. Gong, N. Makris and P. Ratilal, "Using a coherent hydrophone array for observing sperm whale range, classification, and shallow-water dive profiles," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 135(6), 3352-3363 (2014).

Environmental Parameter Estimation

P. Ratilal, M. Andrews, N. Donabed, A. Galinde, C. Rappaport and D. Fenneman, "Model for continuously scanning ultrasound vibrometer sensing displacements of randomly rough vibrating surfaces," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121, 863-878 (2007).
P. Ratilal, P. Gerstoft, J.T. Goh and K.P. Yeo, "Inversion of pressure data on a vertical array to determine the seafloor geoacoustic properties," Journal of Computational Acoustics, Vol. 6, 269-289 (1998).
P. Ratilal, P. Gerstoft and J. T. Goh, "Subspace approach to inversion by genetic algorithms involving multiple frequencies," Journal of Computational Acoustics, Vol. 6, 99-115 (1998).

Former Students:

Dr. Mark Andrews	(PhD. 2009)
Dr. Zheng "Roger" Gong	(PhD. 2012)
Dr. Duong Tran	(PhD. 2014)
Dr. Wei Huang	(PhD. 2017)
Dr. Delin Wang	(PhD. 2017)
Dr. Heriberto Garcia	(PhD. 2018)
Dr. Chenyang Zhu	(PhD. 2020)
Dr. Hamed Mohebbi-Kalkhoran	(PhD. 2022)
Ninos Donabed	(M.Sc. 2006)
Ameya Galinde	(M.Sc. 2007)
Fan Wu	(MSc. 2013)
David Reed	(MSc. 2012)
Hari Chauhan	(MSc. 2012)
Alexander Bohn	(MSc. 2015)
Daniel Cocuzzo	(B.Sc. 2008)
Saumitro DasGupta	(B.Sc. 2010)
Alexander Zorn	(B.Sc. 2014)
Michael Potter	(B.Sc. 2019)
Seth Penna	(B.Sc. 2020)
Anthony Britton	(B.Sc. 2022)

Former Postdoctoral Associates:

Dr. Elizabeth Kusel	(2007-2008)
Dr. Mark Andrews	(2009)