Production Manager Jim Walluk works on a marine autonomous recording unit. Photo by Susan Spear

The demand for remote recording devices for acoustic research has grown so much that BRP manufacturing personnel have outgrown their space at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In July, the entire assembly, programming, testing, and distribution process moved to larger space in the nearby Langmuir Lab facility, in the Cornell Business and Technology Park. By the end of summer 2007, BRP will have a fleet of more than 75 marine autonomous recording units (MARUs) called “pop-ups,” available for leasing.
A large set of terrestrial autonomous recording units (TARUs) are being used in a variety of research projects with partner organizations.

	Product Line Manager Chris Tessaglia-Hymes holds one of the original single-channel terrestrial ARUs. Photo by Susan Spear

Refinements in design and protocols for use of terrestrial ARUs are being developed in conjunction with biologists in the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, Conservation International, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Conservation Department. Research projects now underway include studies on the night flight calls of migrating birds, comparisons of point count data collected by human observers versus ARUs, and recording amphibians in the Amazon. ARUs are also used in the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker across the southeastern United States.

Marine ARUs are being deployed for projects in Iceland, Spain, Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and dozens of other locations around the world. They are increasingly being used by marine industries, government agencies, and researchers to assess the impact of human activities on marine mammals, especially whales.

The overarching goal is to further conservation efforts by giving scientists the tools they need for acoustic studies of animals in marine and terrestrial environments. Look for more advances and improvements from BRP engineers down the road as new ideas flourish in their new space.

Recent Product Advances

BRP engineers have designed most of the electronics and research equipment and are continuing to make improvements. Some of the latest developments are shown below.

		The first batch of stereo ARUs has been built. With GPS time-stamping the recordings can be used to triangulate an animal’s position and pattern of movement. Photo by Susan Spear					Small adjunct microphone "pods" can now be linked to terrestrial ARUs as a secondary channel to improve their recording area coverage. Photo by Susan Spear
		Engineers are developing a new “double-bubble” pop-up with twice the battery capacity and recording time of existing models. The second bubble, filled with batteries, is suspended below the first. The double-bubble was tested for three months in Cape Cod Bay and will next be tested on a one year deployment in the mid-Atlantic. Photo by Jim Walluk					Auto-Detection Buoy electronics packages are being developed and manufactured in the new facility. AD-Buoys are an extension of the MARU technology that add real time detection and reporting capabilities. The buoys include a new digital signal processor (DSP) design that can record sound at sampling rates up to 192 KHz versus the maximum 64 KHz sampling rate available today. Photo by Ildar Urazghildiiev

--Pat Leonard