Towards more accurate sound field verification using directional acoustic filtering

Associating omni-directional sound levels with a specific source in the ocean can be challenging when there are other sources of sound such as boats, or biological activity. Here, we present a method to directionally filter acoustic measurements based on acoustic vector sensor measurements of acoustic pressure and particle velocity. The directional discrimination is applied to estimate sound energy from two marine energy sources: the decommissioning of an oil platform and a tidal energy converter. We find that the application of a directional mask leads to distinctly different spectra and some differences in energy, relative to the unmasked scenarios.