On occasion we have detected signals from orcas simultaneously on adjacent nodes. This may become more commonplace as we add more hydrophone nodes.
To enable high-precision (<1-10m) localization methods using acoustic data recorded at separate nodes, we will need time synchronization to at least milliseconds and ideally microseconds. (At a speed of 1500m/s and range difference of 1m will result in a time difference of 0.6 milliseconds.)
Proposal:
- Check to see how the date-time stamp in the FLAC files is acquired currently.
- Assess other open source tools for time synchronization between nodes
- Implement a new scheme to synchronize time with NIST and accurately encode the recording start time in the lossless audio data file name.