U.S. researchers have developed broadband acoustic systems that they say will improve the ability to count and classify fish and zooplankton, an advance they liken to jumping from black and white television to high-definition TV.
While oceanographers have long used acoustic measurements to determine what lies under the sea, existing technologies use sound waves that measure only one or a few frequencies, producing data that can be ambiguous and open to different interpretations, particularly for small fish and zooplankton.