Tetra Tech Introduces Neptune AI for Offshore Marine Monitoring

Offshore energy and marine construction projects are increasingly required to monitor and mitigate impacts on protected marine species, particularly where underwater noise from construction, vessels, or seismic activity can disturb wildlife. In practice, this monitoring relies on certified acoustic analysts working with real-time data streams from offshore sensors—often under challenging conditions where background noise complicates detection and interpretation.

Traditional acoustic detection tools were largely designed for quieter environments or tuned to identify individual species. As a result, they can miss faint marine mammal vocalisations or generate false positives triggered by ships, equipment, or construction activity. These limitations increase the burden on analysts and can delay mitigation decisions during critical offshore operations.

Tetra Tech has developed Neptune, a patented AI-powered marine mammal detection system designed specifically for real-time offshore mitigation. Unlike conventional tools, Neptune was trained using acoustic recordings collected during actual offshore operations, allowing it to function effectively in complex and noisy soundscapes where monitoring typically takes place.

The system is capable of detecting low- and mid-frequency vocalisations across multiple marine mammal species groups, including faint calls that are difficult to identify manually. Neptune has demonstrated detection accuracy of up to 96% for some vulnerable whale species, exceeding the roughly 80% accuracy level commonly targeted by AI-based acoustic software.

A key feature of the platform is its adaptability. Neptune can be retrained to suppress false positives caused by human and vessel noise and updated to recognise new acoustic conditions as projects evolve. This reduces the volume of raw data that must be transmitted from offshore sensors to shore for manual review. In one marine construction project, the use of AI-based detection reduced data transmission by 40%, contributing to an overall monitoring cost reduction of approximately 70%.

Neptune is designed for flexible deployment across a wide range of offshore applications. It can be integrated into fixed or drifting buoys, unmanned surface vehicles, and vessel-towed acoustic systems used for offshore wind farm construction, port expansion, platform installation, decommissioning, and seismic exploration.

Beyond real-time mitigation, the system can analyse large volumes of acoustic data across multiple species, providing insights into offshore soundscapes that can support future project planning and environmental management. By combining real-time detection, adaptive learning, and reduced data handling requirements, Neptune addresses key operational and compliance challenges faced by offshore energy developers operating in increasingly complex marine environments.

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