Acoustic measurements

Noise originating from anthropogenic sources is at the forefront of environmental impact concerns for marine environment, and a critical metric for industrial regulatory purposes… but not all sounds are created equal…

OSC specialises in providing case-specific acoustic measurements of both ambient sound and anthropogenic noise tailored towards our clients’ individual needs and requirements – ensuring that data collection and analysis are always fit-for-purpose.

OSC offers a variety of off-the-shelf and customised hydrophone systems enabling measurement and monitoring of underwater sound levels for applications including:

Real-time and/or remote telemetry;
Establishing ambient/background sound level baselines;
Characterisation of industrial underwater noise;
Quantification of received noise levels in mitigation/safety zones;
Management of underwater noise mitigation; and,
Assessing marine mammal presence and behaviour.

Custom analytical software

OSC has developed a selection of bespoke software solutions for both real-time and retrospective acoustic analysis. These user-friendly interfaces have been designed by our in-house acousticians to provide a range of visuals and metrics directly at your fingertips and can be customised depending on project requirements.

Waveform visualisations and spectrograms;
Sound Pressure Level (SPL), Sound Exposure Level (SEL), and Power spectral density (PSD) meeting industry standards
In situ third octave spectral analysis;
Summary statistics;
Automatic and/or user-defined calculation criteria; and,
Optional data logging.

Over-The-Side (OTS) real-time cabled hydrophones

A manned system deployed and operated by trained and experienced OSC personnel, enabling real-time data acquisition and analysis.

Suited to time-critical applications, e.g. ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements;
Flat frequency responses ranging from 1 Hz to 470 kHz (according to requirements);
100% redundancy to mitigate any operational issues;
Deployable beside Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) casts, enabling calculation of sound-speed profiles; and,
Near real-time data quality control (QC) available from OSC’s PhD-qualified acousticians.

Beamforming autonomous recorder

This is an autonomous, all-in-one technology used for quantifying ambient/background noise, broadband marine mammal detection (low, mid and high frequency cetaceans, such as baleen whales, dolphins and porpoises), and animal localisation in three dimensions, as well as anthropogenic noise during post-processing. The product can be deployed from the side of a fixed installation or moored to the seabed. Data are sampled as high as 750 Ksps, on up to five channels simultaneously, and can be telemetered real-time via a variety of techniques back to a vessel or shore-based user. Unlike OSC’s towed arrays, the system resolves the problem of left-right ambiguity, by employing beamforming techniques. This enables acquisition of bearing estimation of targets, which renders it appropriate for studying marine mammal behaviour and underwater movement. The system comes with a beamforming ‘app’, enabling the user to detect animals in the presence of strong interferers (such as a turbine). The system offers great flexibility for addition of other sensors, such as echolocation-click detectors, cameras, or oceanographical instruments (turbidity, fluorescence, CTD etc.).

Full system specifications available upon request. Contact us for further details.

Acoustic measurements

Custom analytical software

Over-The-Side (OTS) real-time cabled hydrophones

Beamforming autonomous recorder

UK

Greece

New Zealand