Output details
15 - General Engineering
University of Southampton
Do dolphins benefit from nonlinear mathematics when processing their sonar returns?
Significance of output:
Of all features that confound man-made sonar, bubbles are the most potent, cluttering the sonar image just as fog confounds car headlamps. However dolphin sonar is effective in bubbly water. Some dolphins even blow bubble nets when hunting, begging the question: Are these hunters ‘blinding’ their most spectacular sense (echolocation) when they bubble net? We build a sonar that works in bubbly water, and show that, provided dolphins could exploit nonlinearity, their sonar could work in bubbly water. Videos were made by the Royal Society (http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/suppl/2012/07/19/rspa.2012.0247.DC1) and online USA TV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQPorwEf_k4). Featured on German radio and worldwide blogs http://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/research/projects/do_dolphins_think_nonlinearly.page?
