Passive Acoustic Monitoring

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Overview

Passive acoustic monitoring uses long-running recordings to study wildlife, ecosystems, and underwater sound without needing observers at every site. Researchers use spectrogram-based CNNs and transformers, event localization and tracking, and self-supervised or weakly supervised learning to find calls in large archives with limited annotations. Benchmarks increasingly test cross-site and cross-sensor transfer, while active learning and curated datasets aim to make labeling more efficient. A central challenge is ensuring models generalize to noisy, unfamiliar environments while meeting the power, storage, and reliability limits of field sensors.

Latest papers

CardsList

38 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, down 56% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. Dolphin broadband transient vocalization detection in impulsive ambient noise

    Oct 26, 2026Hari Vishnu, Jin Xinhui, Mandar Chitre +2Underwater AcousticsBioacoustics

    Acoustic Research Laboratory, Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore. · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore.

  2. A Hierarchical Method for Environmental Sounds Recognition in Complex Acoustic Scenes

    Oct 26, 2026Zhouwen Li, Haijun Lin, Bowen Lv +1Audio ClassificationHierarchical Classification

    Hunan Normal University School of Engineering and Design Changsha, China

  3. On Distributed Sensing and Adversarial Localization of Narrowband Acoustic Sources for Offshore Data Center Monitoring

    Oct 25, 2026Adnan Abdullah, David Blow, Harsha Gundala Sureshbabu +3Passive Acoustic Monitoring

    RoboPI Laboratory, ECE Department, University of Florida · CPSec Laboratory, CISE Department, University of Florida

  4. From Signals to Evidence: Interpretable Underwater Acoustic Target Sensing with Large Language Models - Part II: Passive Detection

    Oct 22, 2026Zhiyuan Li, Yuge Zhang, Jie Chen +6Underwater AcousticsPassive Acoustic Monitoring

    School of Artificial Intelligence, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710129, China · School of Ocean Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, 519000, Guangdong, China · School of Marine Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710129, China +1

  5. Do bioacoustic foundation models hear through the noise ? SNR and generalization in underwater detection

    Oct 20, 2026Lucie Jean-Labadye, Nicolas Farrugia, Axel Marmoret +2BioacousticsNoise Robustness

    Sorbonne Universit´e, Institut ∂’Alembert, UMR CNRS 7190, F-75005, Paris, France · ENSTA, Lab-STICC, UMR CNRS 6285, F-29806, Brest, France · IMT Atlantique, Lab-STICC, UMR CNRS 6285, F-29238 Brest, France

  6. Bad: Taming the Bioacoustic Data Deluge with a Bat Activity Detector

    Sep 29, 2026Stefano Ciapponi, Santiago Martinez Balvanera, Andrea Cesaretti +2Sound Event DetectionBioacoustics

    Fondazione Bruno Kessler · University of Trento · University College London

  7. Beyond Discrimination: Calibrated Geoprior Fusion for Bioacoustic Monitoring

    Sep 25, 2026Neha Sajja, Bart van Merriënboer, Burcu Karagol Ayan +1BioacousticsProbability Calibration

    Google DeepMind · Harvard University

  8. Towards Deployable Underwater Vessel Classification

    Sep 24, 2026Abishek Soti, Thura Pyae Sone, Naqib Ibnul +4Passive Acoustic MonitoringLightweight CNNs

    ICNS, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

  9. BioDCASE: Active Learning for Bioacoustics

    Sep 14, 2026Ben McEwen, Rupa Kurinchi-Vendhan, Shiqi Zhang +3Active LearningBioacoustics

    University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands · Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA · Tampere University, Finland +2

  10. MAST: Label-Efficient, Robust, and Generalizable Sound Detection for Biodiversity Monitoring via Masked Audio Pretraining and Self-Training

    Sep 14, 2026Tianyi Xu, Daniel Pimentel-Alarcón, Zuzana Buřivalová +1Self-TrainingSound Event Detection

    University of Wisconsin–Madison

  11. Bridging Echolocation Gaps in Automated Beaked Whale Tracking

    Sep 9, 2026Clair Ma, Thomas Kropfreiter, Lauren Baggett +2BioacousticsPassive Acoustic Monitoring

    Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA · Institute of Telecommunications, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria · Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.

  12. Large-scale bioacoustic detection using semantic segmentation: a deep learning framework applied to fin whale calls in ocean-bottom seismometer recordings

    Sep 8, 2026Jocelyn Japnanto, Alex A. Saoulis, Miriam Romagosa +5BioacousticsPassive Acoustic Monitoring

    Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, United Kingdom · Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London, United Kingdom · Instituto de Investigação em Ciências do Mar (OKEANOS), Universidade dos Açores, Horta, Portugal +4

  13. Unlabeled Echoes: Pseudo-Labels and Genus-Aware Smoothing for Bat Call Recognition

    Sep 8, 2026Frank Fundel, Alexandra HowardPseudo-LabelingBioacoustics

    Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany · University of the Free State, Department of Zoology and Entomology, Qwaqwa Campus, South Africa

  14. Open-Set Vessel Re-Identification from Underwater Ship-Radiated Noise with a Raw-Waveform Selective-Kernel Acoustic Neural Network (SKANN) and a Cross-Passage Evaluation Protocol

    Sep 7, 2026Sunil TyagiOpen-Set RecognitionConvolutional Neural Networks

    Oravont Systems LLP, Noida, India

  15. Efficient Passive Acoustic Monitoring of Killer Whales Using a Two-Stage Detection and Ecotype Classification Cascade

    Sep 1, 2026Daniela Ruiz, Manuel Castellote, Zhongqi Miao +5Sound Event DetectionBioacoustics

    Microsoft AI for Good Research Lab, Redmond, Washington, USA · Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia

  16. PolyChirp: Multi-Species Birdsong Classification Using TinyML on Low-Power Acoustic Sensors

    Aug 24, 2026Nathan Duboisset, Zhaolan Huang, Felix Bießmann +3Bird Vocalization ClassificationAudio Classification

    Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France · Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany · Berlin University of Applied Sciences (BHT), Berlin, Germany +2

  17. Effectiveness of IoT and Deep Learning for Detection and Severity Assessment of Postelectrotermes militaris in Tea Plantations

    Aug 22, 2026D. K. C. Senevirathna, A. A. E. Nanayakkara, H. M. C. K. Kulathunga +7Passive Acoustic Monitoring

    Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, New Kandy Road, Malabe, Sri Lanka · University of Kelaniya, Kandy Road, Dalugama, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka · Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka, Talawakelle, Sri Lanka +1

  18. Acoustic UAV Detection in Battlefield Scenarios: Handling Noise, Domain Shift, and Weak Labels

    Aug 14, 2026Vadym Vilhurin, Volodymyr Sydorskyi, Andrii ShevtsovPassive Acoustic MonitoringNoise Robustness

    Institute for Applied System Analysis, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Kyiv, Ukraine · Zvook, Lviv, Ukraine · Computer Science Department, Kyiv School of Economics, Kyiv, Ukraine

  19. Physics-Informed Learning for Robust Acoustic Localization with Calibrated Uncertainty

    Aug 9, 2026Jennifer N. Kampe, Changwoo J. Lee, Xin Shen +5Physics-Informed MLBioacoustics

    Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland · Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA · 3Digital Services, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland +1

  20. Transfer Learning for Avian Bioacoustics under Sparse Positive Labels

    Aug 4, 2026Dhyey Patel, Yunting YinMulti-Source Domain AdaptationWeakly Supervised Learning

    Eastern Michigan University Computer Science Department Ypsilanti, MI, USA

  21. Uncertainty-Aware Crossmodal Fusion for Classification of Animal Behavior

    Aug 3, 2026Ehsan Yaghoubi, Florian HaselbeckUncertainty-Aware Multimodal FusionBioacoustics

    Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences, Department of Sustainable Agricultural and Energy Systems, Freising, Am Staudengarten 1, 85354, Germany

  22. Ultra-Compact CNN Architectures for Tropical Bird Audio Detection on Microcontrollers

    Jul 22, 2026Muhammad Mun'im Ahmad Zabidi, Mohd Yamani Idna Idris, Norisma IdrisConvolutional Neural NetworksWildlife Monitoring

    Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

  23. MetaPerch: Learning from metadata for bioacoustics foundation models

    Jul 15, 2026Mustafa Chasmai, Vincent Dumoulin, Jenny HamerRepresentation LearningBioacoustics

    University of Massachusetts Amherst. · Google DeepMind.

  24. From Continuous Deployment to Queryable Dataset: Terabyte-Scale AIS-Aligned Passive Acoustic Labelling

    Jul 15, 2026Wayne Renaud, Priyanka Aravindan, Gabriel SpadonSpatiotemporal ReasoningPassive Acoustic Monitoring

    Faculty of Computer Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

  25. ForestIR: Physics-Informed Forest Sound Simulation for Array-Based Bioacoustic Remote Sensing

    Jul 7, 2026Xin Shen, Jennifer N. Kampe, Changwoo J. Lee +7Direction-of-Arrival EstimationBioacoustics

    Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA · Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland · Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland +2

  26. A Self-Supervised Approach for Minimal-Annotation Hydroacoustic Data Exploration

    Jul 7, 2026Pierre-Yves Raumer, Axel Marmoret, Dorian Cazau +6Audio Representation LearningSelf-Supervised Learning

    Laboratoire de G´eologie, Ecole Normale Sup´erieure/CNRS UMR 8538, PSL Research University, Paris 75005, France · Universit´e de Brest, CNRS, Ifremer, UMR6538 Geo-Ocean, 29280 Plouzan´e, France · Lab-STICC – UMR 6285 CNRS, ENSTA IP Paris, Brest, France +5

  27. EchoHawk: A Reproducible Acoustic Pipeline for Drone Detection, Classification, and Direction-Finding, with a Cautionary Study of Session-Level Data Leakage

    Jun 28, 2026David ShulmanData LeakageDirection-of-Arrival Estimation

  28. Decoding Insect Song: A Multitask Semisupervised Orthoptera Bioacoustic Classifier

    Jun 11, 2026Olga Isupova, Danil Kuzin, Ella Browning +2Audio Representation LearningAudio Understanding

    Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

  29. Time-frequency localization of bird calls in dense soundscapes

    Jun 9, 2026Simen Hexeberg, Fanghui Tong, Hari Vishnu +1Sound Event DetectionObject Detection

    Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore · Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore · School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore

  30. CoarseSoundNet: Building a reliable model for ecological soundscape analysis

    May 20, 2026Alexander Gebhard, Andreas Triantafyllopoulos, Dominik Arend +4Sound Event DetectionPassive Acoustic Monitoring

    TUM University Hospital, CHI – Chair of Health Informatics, Ismaninger Str. 22, Munich, 81675, Bavaria, Germany · MCML – Munich Center for Machine Learning, Munich, Bavaria, Germany · University of Freiburg, Faculty of Biology, Geobotany, Schaenzlestr. 1, Freiburg, 79104, Baden-Württemberg, Germany +1