Identification and analysis of acoustic features in ultrasonic echoes

Some dolphin and bat species have developed highly sophisticated echolocation systems. These systems allow the species to navigate and hunt very effectively. They are able to do so because their echolocation systems extract extensive information from sonar echoes. Man made sonar systems gather very limited information (usually range only) from sonar echoes. This project investigates extracting much more information than just range from the echo of signals produced by a Polaroid transducer. To carry out this investigation, software and hardware were constructed to generate and capture ultrasonic signals. As well, software tools were written to aid in the analysis of echoes. These tools comprise of graphical and signal analysis software to compare and contrast echoes.