Animal Sonar Systems

  • René-Guy Busnel
  • James F. Fish

Part of the NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series book series (volume 28)

Table of contents

  1. Front Matter
    Pages i-xxiv
  2. The Early History of Research on Echolocation

    1. Donald R. Griffin
      Pages 1-8
  3. Performances of Animal Sonar Systems

    1. Front Matter
      Pages 9-9
    2. Underwater

    3. Airborne

      1. Hans-Ulrich Schnitzler, O’Dell W. Henson Jr.
        Pages 109-181
  4. Echolocation Signals and Echoes

    1. Front Matter
      Pages 197-197
    2. Underwater

    3. Airborne

      1. J. David Pye
        Pages 309-353
      2. Patricia E. Brown, Alan D. Grinnell
        Pages 355-377
  5. Adaptiveness of Echolocation

    1. Front Matter
      Pages 379-379
    2. Underwater

      1. F. G. Wood, W. E. Evans
        Pages 381-425
    3. Airborne

  6. Auditory Processing of Echoes

    1. Front Matter
      Pages 447-447
    2. Underwater

      1. James G. McCormick, E. G. Wever, S. H. Ridgway, J. Palin
        Pages 449-467
      2. Arthur N. Popper
        Pages 469-481
      3. Kenneth S. Norris
        Pages 495-509
      4. Theodore Holmes Bullock
        Pages 511-514
    3. Airborne

  7. Theories and Models of Echolocation

    1. Front Matter
      Pages 613-613
    2. Underwater

      1. Robert W. Floyd
        Pages 615-623
      2. Richard A. Altes
        Pages 625-671
      3. Richard A. Johnson
        Pages 673-693
    3. Airborne

  8. Sensing Designs

  9. Posters

    1. Front Matter
      Pages 845-845
    2. Richard Altes, Sam H. Ridgway
      Pages 853-854
    3. Whitlow W. L. Au, Clifford E. Hammer Jr.
      Pages 855-858
    4. Whitlow W. L. Au, Ronald J. Schusterman, Deborah A. Kersting
      Pages 859-862

About this book


Thirteen years have gone by since the first international meet­ ing on Animal Sonar Systems was held in Frascati, Italy, in 1966. Since that time, almost 900 papers have been published on its theme. The first symposium was vital as it was the starting point for new research lines whose goal was to design and develop technological systems with properties approaching optimal biological systems. There have been highly significant developments since then in all domains related to biological sonar systems and in their appli­ cations to the engineering field. The time had therefore come for a multidisciplinary integration of the information gathered, not only on the evolution of systems used in animal echolocation, but on systems theory, behavior and neurobiology, signal-to-noise ratio, masking, signal processing, and measures observed in certain species against animal sonar systems. Modern electronics technology and systems theory which have been developed only since 1974 now allow designing sophisticated sonar and radar systems applying principles derived from biological systems. At the time of the Frascati meeting, integrated circuits and technol­ ogies exploiting computer science were not well enough developed to yield advantages now possible through use of real-time analysis, leading to, among other things, a definition of target temporal char­ acteristics, as biological sonar systems are able to do. All of these new technical developments necessitate close co­ operation between engineers and biologists within the framework of new experiments which have been designed, particularly in the past five years.


adaptation anatomy animals behavior biology ecology electronics evolution experiment information mammals neurobiology physiology system vertebrates

Editors and affiliations

  • René-Guy Busnel
    • 1
  • James F. Fish
    • 2
  1. 1.Ecole Pratique des Hautes EtudesJouy-en-JosasFrance
  2. 2.Sonatech, Inc.GoletaUSA

Bibliographic information