PAMGUARD Modules

PAMGuard

PAMGuard Modules

PAMGuard contains of an ever growing number of plug-in modules, each of which performs some sort of data handling task. Individual modules may do anything from acquiring sound data, to managing a database or searching for a particular sound type. Generally, every module will acquire data either from another module, or through some external interface (such as a sound card, GPS or depth sensor readout). The output of a module may be a display, more data or both. A single module may have multiple output data streams. For instance, the sound acquisition module primarily outputs raw audio data to other PAMGuard modules, but also outputs data providing a record of when sound acquisition was started and stopped which can be stored in the database.

PAMGuard currently contains 70 plug-in modules which can be selected and configured by the user (See the table below). It is generally possible to create multiple instances of a given module type. For instance, the operator may wish to incorporate two click detectors, each optimised for a different species, or have two sound acquisition modules, one acquiring low frequency data and one high frequency data. For certain module types (e.g. GPS acquisition), the user may be restricted to having a single instance.

We are constantly developing new modules for PAMGuard. The table also includes some information on modules which we’re working on at the moment. Due to PAMGuard being open source, there may of course be other modules under development we don’t yet know about.

Last updated 19 December 2024

Maps and Mapping, Utilities, Sensors, Displays, Sound Processing, Detectors, Classifiers, Localisers, Visual Methods

Maps and Mapping (6 modules)

Module	Number	Function
NMEA Data Collection	Any	Collects NMEA data from a serial port
GPS Processing	Any	Interprets NMEA data to extract GPS data
Map	Any	Displays a map of vessel position and detections
AIS Processing	Up to 1	Interprets NMEA data to extract AIS data
Airgun Display	Any	Shows the position of airguns (or any other source) on the map
Fixed Landmarks	Any	Place object symbols on the PAMGuard map

Utilities (11 modules)

Module	Number	Function
Database	Exactly 1	Stores PAMGuard data in a database
Binary Storage	Up to 1	Stores PAMGuard data in files on the hard drive
Data Map	Exactly 1	Shows a summary of data density over time for large datasets
User input	Up to 1	Creates a form for the user to type comments into
Aural Listening Form	Any	Creates a form for the user to manually log things they hear
Signal Injection and Detector Evaluation (SIDE)	Up to 1	Signal injection and real time performance tests
Alarm	Any	Alerts the operator when certain detections are made
Spectrogram Annotation	Any	Offline marking on the spectrogram display
Print Screen	Up to 1	Capture PAMGuard screens to time-stamped image files and the clipboard. Use as a shortcut
Scroll Effort	Up to 1	Enables an observer to enter their name and infomation about which displays are being monitored
Backup Manager	Up to 1	Manage automated data backups

Sensors (6 modules)

Module	Number	Function
Analog Array Sensors	Up to 1	Reads Depth, Heading, Pitch and Roll) using analog sensors
Hydrophone Depth Readout	Any	Reads and displays hydrophone depth information
Array Accelerometer	Up to 1	Reads and accelerometer to orientate a hydrophone array
Angle Measurement	Any	Reads angles from a Fluxgate World shaft angle encoder. (Can be used to read angle of binocular stands)
SoundTrap Detector Import	Up to 1	Tools for import of SoundTrap detector data
CPOD Detector Import	Any	Imports CPOD data

Displays (4 modules)

Module	Number	Function
User Display	Any	Creates an empty display panel which the user can add spectrograms and other displays to
Local Time	Any	Shows local time on the display
Level Meter	Any	Shows signal level meters
Array Orientation	Up to 1	Displays array depth and orientation data

Sound Processing (18 modules)

Module	Number	Function
Sound Acquisition	Any	Controls input of sound data from sound cards, NI cards, etc.
Sound Output	Exactly 1	Controls output of sound data for listening to on headphones
FFT (Spectrogram) Engine	Any	Computes spectrograms of audio data
Filters (IIR and FIR)	Any	Filters audio data
Decimator	Any	Decimates (reduces the frequency of) audio data
Cepstrum	Any	Calculates a continuous Cepstrum from FFT Data
Sound recorder	Any	Records audio data to wav of AIF files
Clip generator	Any	Generates and stores short clips of sound data in response to detections
Signal Amplifier	Any	Amplifies (or attenuates) audio data
Patch Panel	Any	Reorganises and mixes audio data between channels
Spectrogram smoothing kernel	Any	Smooths a spectrogram of audio data
Seismic Veto	Any	Cuts out loud sounds from audio data
Noise Monitor	Any	Measures noise in predefined frequency bands (e.g. thrid octave)
Noise Band Monitor	Any	Measure noise in octave or third octave bands
Filtered Noise Measurement	Any	Measure noise in a single arbitrary filter band (replaces dBHt module)
Long Term Spectral Average	Any	Make Long Term Spectral Average Measurements
Envelope Tracing	Any
Beamformer	Any	Continuous Frequency Domain Beamforming

Detectors (11 modules)

Module	Number	Function
Click Detector	Any	Searches for transient sounds, attempts to assign species, measure bearings to source, group into click trains, etc.
Click Train Detector	Any	Searches for click trains in detected clicks.
Whistle and Moan Detector	Any	Searches for tonal noises. Measures bearings and locations of source. Replaces older Whistle Detector
Whistle Detector	Any	Searches for tonal noises. Measures bearings and locations of source
Ishmael energy sum	Any	Detects sounds with energy in a specific frequency band
Ishmael spectrogram correlation	Any	Detects sounds matching a user defined ‘shape’ on a spectrogram
Ishmael matched filtering	Any	Detects sounds using a user defined matched filter
Likelihood Detector	Any	An implementation of a likelihood ratio test
Right Whale Edge Detector	Any	Detects right whale upsweep calls
Generalised Power Law Detector	Any	Generalised Power Law Detector for tonal sounds
SoundTrap Click Detector	Any	Click Detector module for Soundtrap detector data only

Classifiers (4 modules)

Module	Number	Function
Whistle Classifier	Any	Analyses multiple whistle contours to assign to species
Rocca	Any	Real-time acoustic species identification of delphinid whistles and clicks
Matched Template Click Classifer	Any	Classifies clicks based on an ideal template to match and a template to reject. An example of this is to classify beaked whale clicks in an environment with dolphin clicks
Deep Learning Classifier	Any	Classifies sections of raw acoustic data based on an imported deep learning classifier

Localisers (8 modules)

Module	Number	Function
Bearing Localiser	Any	Estimate bearing to detections or spectrogram marks from small aperture arrays
Group 3D Localiser	Any	2D and 3D Localisation for large aperture arrays
Detection Grouper	Any	Groups detections and other data using manual annotations on PAMGuard displays
Ishmael Locator	Any	Locates sounds extracted either from areas marked out on a spectrogram display or using output from a detector
Multipath 3D Localiser	Any	Locates sounds detected by the click detector using surface echo’s to obtain slant angles and generate a 3-D location
DIFAR Azigram Engine	Any	(BETA) Azigram engine for multiplexed DIFAR data (BETA)
DIFAR Directional Audio	Any	Audio from a DIFAR sonobuoy that has been beamformed at a user-specified single steering angle. This module can be used to reduce directional masking noise.
DIFAR Localisation	Up to 1	DIFAR Sonobuoy localisation module - takes raw data source with multiplexed directional audio data

Visual Methods (2 modules)

Module	Number	Function
Video Range	Any	Calculates ranges based on angles measured from video, observer height and earth radius
Logger Forms	Up to 1	Replicates the functionality of User Defined Forms in the IFAW Logger software

Previous: PAMGuard Architecture

Next: Graphical User Interface Overview