Monday 18 January 2016

mammals - How can bats achieve good resolution with wide beams?



I have been reading about the echolocation system in bats. papers state that bats tend to produce a sonar beam that has a beam angle (-3db) of about 30-40 degrees. This would be considered a wide beam given the fact the sonar sensors used by robots have beams 15-20 degrees or down to 10 degrees with multi-sonar.


As the beam width increases, the azimuth resolution decreases. Yet, bats have good navigational capabilities and good object discrimination in azimuth. How is that achieved? what is the technique used?


I searched hard but what I found is that they rely on the timing between two ears. however, given the complexity of the environment and the multiple echos that return, how is it possible to correlate which echo in the left ear belongs to which in the right ear?




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