Rényi entropy-based detection of North Atlantic right whale gunshot vocalizations

A Rényi spectral entropy is introduced for environment-adaptive detection of underwater acoustic signals in low signal-to-noise conditions. The Rényi order α is a control parameter; varying α enhances contrast between signals and background noise and improves detectability. The entropy variance as a function of α exhibits four regimes separated by crossover points, from which an optimal interval for signal selection is identified. This establishes α as a single tunable parameter to optimize detection performance. The approach is validated on passive recordings of North Atlantic right whale gunshots and outperforms a detector based on the Shannon spectral entropy.