BatEchoMon (Bat Echolocation Monitoring

BatEchoMon (Bat Echolocation Monitoring): India’s first autonomous system for real-time detection and analysis of bat calls, developed under the Long-Term Urban Ecological Observatory at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru

• About BatEchoMon: It enables faster and automated processing of bat echolocation data.

o Real-Time Analysis: It is capable of detecting and analysing bat calls in real-time, offering major efficiency over traditional manual methods.

o Efficiency: Deshpande noted that what took 11 months to process manually could now be achieved in a few hours using BatEchoMon.

o Device Components: It includes a recording device, storage, processing, and real-time analysis units.

o Microprocessor: Powered by a Raspberry Pi microprocessor, which processes data captured by Audiomoth, used as an ultrasonic microphone.

o Detection Process: The system isolates bat calls from other ultrasounds, then analyses peak frequency and structure using pre-trained models to identify species.

o Technology: Uses a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based algorithm for species identification.

o Identification Capacity: Currently identifies 6–7 common Indian bat species.

o Collaborative Boost: Initiatives like the ‘State of India’s Bats’ workshop are helping improve collaboration and expand bat call databases in India.

---