Animal echolocation: Principle

Echolocation is the same as active sonar, using sounds made by the animal itself. Ranging is done by measuring the time delay between the animal's own sound emission and any echoes that return from the environment. The relative intensity of sound received at each ear as well as the time delay between arrival at the two ears provide information about the horizontal angle (azimuth) from which the reflected sound waves arrive. Unlike some human-made sonars that rely on many extremely narrow beams and many receivers to localize a target (multibeam sonar), animal echolocation has only one transmitter and two receivers (the ears).

^{[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source ] Downvote to remove | v0.24}