Unreported large errors from two PAMGuard three-dimensional localizers of whale calls
Abstract
Confidence intervals of location (CIL) of calling marine mammals, derived from time-differences-of-arrival (TDOA) between receivers, depend on errors of TDOAs, receiver location, clocks, sound speeds, and location method. When these errors are minuscule, simulations yield small errors of PAMGuard's 3D simplex localizer when click sounds of beaked and sperm whales originate in a 1000 x 1000 x 1000 m3 region using five receivers having horizontal and vertical separations of 1000 m and 150 m respectively. Realistic uncertainties of sound speed up to ± 10 m/s lead to errors up to 1014 m. With clocks maintained by atomic standards and common practice of correcting TDOA from synchronization measurements at the start and end of an experiment, errors of location are up to 104 m. Errors up to 102 and 103 m are found when the receiver's locations are uncertain within 10 and 40 m respectively. Errors of PAMGuard's 3D hyperbolic localizer are almost independent of the above uncertainties, yielding errors of location up to about 104 m even when simulated errors are minuscule. Causes of PAMGuard's 3D location errors are unknown. These algorithms are briefly compared to another method designed to yield a reliable CIL.
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BibTeX
@misc{mathur2026unreported,
title = {{Unreported large errors from two PAMGuard three-dimensional localizers of whale calls}},
author = {Maya Mathur and Luke Stoner-Eby and Devin Pascoe and John L. Spiesberger},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.20350},
eprint = {2609.20350},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20350},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Unreported large errors from two PAMGuard three-dimensional localizers of whale calls
AU - Maya Mathur
AU - Luke Stoner-Eby
AU - Devin Pascoe
AU - John L. Spiesberger
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.20350
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20350
AB - Confidence intervals of location (CIL) of calling marine mammals, derived from time-differences-of-arrival (TDOA) between receivers, depend on errors of TDOAs, receiver location, clocks, sound speeds, and location method. When these errors are minuscule, simulations yield small errors of PAMGuard's 3D simplex localizer when click sounds of beaked and sperm whales originate in a 1000 x 1000 x 1000 m^3 region using five receivers having horizontal and vertical separations of 1000 m and 150 m respectively. Realistic uncertainties of sound speed up to ± 10 m/s lead to errors up to 10^14 m. With clocks maintained by atomic standards and common practice of correcting TDOA from synchronization measurements at the start and end of an experiment, errors of location are up to 10^4 m. Errors up to 10^2 and 10^3 m are found when the receiver's locations are uncertain within 10 and 40 m respectively. Errors of PAMGuard's 3D hyperbolic localizer are almost independent of the above uncertainties, yielding errors of location up to about 10^4 m even when simulated errors are minuscule. Causes of PAMGuard's 3D location errors are unknown. These algorithms are briefly compared to another method designed to yield a reliable CIL.
ER -