Correlating the acoustic and physical behavior of marine mammals is an ongoing challenge for scientists studying the links between acoustic communication and social behavior of these animals. The beamforming video recorder (BVR) produces a video recording with cues indicating where each dolphin whistle or echolocation click in the image originated. The BVR is a short baseline audio/video array consisting of 16 hydrophones mounted on a cross of roughly 1 m aperture with an underwater camera at the origin of the cross. The bearings of vocalizing dolphins are estimated using Thode et al's broadband frequency domain beamforming algorithm for sparse arrays to suppress grating lobes [JASA 107(6), 2000]. The estimated bearings from the acoustic signals are then converted to video image coordinates and a marker is placed on the video image. The BVR has been successfully field tested at the Dolphin Connection on Duck Key, Florida. These tests confirmed that the BVR worked well within the limits of underwater visibility by consistently placing the marker on or near the whistling or echolocating dolphin.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9733391.