Low Resource Passive Acoustic Vessel Detectors: Performance and System Design for Challenging Acoustic Environments

Lowes, GJ; Neasham, J

doi:10.1109/SAS65169.2025.11105172

Low Resource Passive Acoustic Vessel Detectors: Performance and System Design for Challenging Acoustic Environments

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gavin Lowes ORCiD, Professor Jeffrey Neasham ORCiD

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Abstract

© 2025 IEEE. This paper describes further development and experiments on the Passive Acoustic Detection and Localisation (PADAL) system developed by Newcastle University [1]. This uses novel low-power signal processing and in-situ computation to identify the propeller cavitation noise produced by passing vessels. This work highlights the challenges of detection by this method in areas of high biological noise and explores an alternative low-frequency vessel detection algorithm (LFVD). The PADAL system was successfully deployed in the North Sea (NSUK) and tropical waters in UK overseas territories (UKOT), transmitting detection results in real time back to shore by integrating with a custom low-power LoRaWAN gateway buoy and shoreside receiver station [2]. In NSUK the detection rates were very high with a target vessel detected within a 2 km radius of the device, whereas in UKOT waters high background biological noise hampered the detection performance. As both deployments included acoustic recorders, offline processing of data gathered led to the development of a new LFVD algorithm. This algorithm was shown to reliably detect vessels within 400 m in this high noise environment. Moreover, the algorithm offers a significant power saving when compared to the current PADAL system. The current PADAL system consumed 29 mW during continuous detection processing with the LFVD consuming only 5 mW in this mode. This saving would significantly prolong the field deployment duration of the battery-powered PADAL device.