CAB Guardian System (Coastal Acoustic Buoy)
SMRU Consulting has developed a real-time passive acoustic monitoring buoy system, the CAB Guardian. The Guardian delivers real-time cetacean detection, classification, localization, and tracking. The system consists of a bottom moored lander connected to a communication surface buoy that up-links to a base station. The base station can be on shore, in the cloud, or on a vessel at sea.
The Guardian system has been successfully field tested in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean environments. With multiple Guardian systems making detections, bearings can be crossed to localize calling animals. In extensive field trials in 2021, multiple Guardian systems were deployed in a network configuration in Mid-Atlantic waters in
a simulated Wind-farm construction mitigation exercise. We used more than 3,500 North Atlantic Right Whale up call playbacks at known ranges and bearing angles to measure the detection accuracy. Detection ranges up to 10km were achieved, depending on up-call amplitude and ambient noise levels.
The internal Acoustic Processing System (APS) has also been integrated into Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs), and several ocean monitoring systems developed by other companies. One of the most comprehensive of those systems is Ocean Perception developed by Oceaneering . Ocean Perception fuses the data from multiple sensors which include acoustics (CAB Guardians and CAB Sentinels), Radar, AIS, IR Cameras, Visible light Cameras, and weather information.
Use Cases
Marine mammal acoustic detections and localization for mitigation needs
Ambient noise monitoring
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SPECS
Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Up to 3 months
Max Depth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60m
Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Up to 15km
Satellite Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unlimited
Software. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAMGuard (open source)
Lander Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410kg
Lander Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2m by 2m by 1m
Tele‐Buoy Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.10m by 0.56m
Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Custom battery packs
Detection Range (species dependent). . . . . . . . . . . . .10km
Bearing Error (species dependent). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +-1°