Combined LOFAR and DEMON Spectrums for Simultaneous Underwater Acoustic Object Counting and F0 Estimation

• Published in: Journal of marine science and engineering 2022-10, Vol.10 (10), p.1565
• Main Authors: Li, Liming, Song, Sanming, Feng, Xisheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Acoustics; Algorithms; Autonomous underwater vehicles; Broadband; CRNN; Datasets; Deep learning; DEMON; F0 estimation; Feature extraction; Information theory; Lakes; LOFAR; Low speed; Machine learning; Methods; Neural networks; Noise; object counting; Parameter estimation; Recurrent neural networks; Resonant frequencies; Signal processing; Spectrum analysis; Target detection; Underwater; Underwater acoustics
• ISSN: 2077-1312; 2077-1312
• DOI: 10.3390/jmse10101565

In a typical underwater acoustic target detection mission, we have to estimate the target number (N), perform source separation when N>1, and consequently predict the motion parameters such as fundamental frequency (F0) from separated noises for each target. Although deep learning methods have been adopted in each task, their successes strongly depend on the feed-in features. In this paper, we evaluate several time-frequency features and propose a universal feature extraction strategy for object counting and F0 estimation simultaneously, with a convolutional recurrent neural network (CRNN) as the backbone. On one hand, LOFAR and DEMON are feasible for low-speed and high-speed analysis, respectively, and are combined (LOFAR + DEMON) to cope with full-condition estimation. On the other hand, a comb filter (COMB) is designed and applied to the combined spectrum for harmonicity enhancement, which will be further streamed into the CRNN for prediction. Experiments show that (1) in the F0 estimation task, feeding the filtered combined feature (LOFAR + DEMON + COMB) into the CRNN achieves an accuracy of 98% in the lake trial dataset, which is superior to LOFAR + COMB (83%) or DEMON + COMB (94%) alone, demonstrating that feature combination is plausible. (2) In a counting task, the prediction accuracy of the combined feature (LOFAR + DEMON, COMB included or excluded) is comparable to the state-of-the-art on simulation dataset and dominates the rest on the lake trial dataset, indicating that LOFAR + DEMON can be used as a common feature for both tasks. (3) The inclusion of COMB accelerates the convergence speed of the F0 estimation task, however, it penalizes the counting task by a depression of 13% on average, partly due to the merging effects brought in by the broadband filtering of COMB.