Networked localization of sniper shots using acoustics

S. Hengy; P. Hamery; S. De Mezzo; P. Duffner

doi:10.1117/12.883906

20 May 2011 Networked localization of sniper shots using acoustics

S. Hengy, P. Hamery, S. De Mezzo, P. Duffner

Proceedings Volume 8046, Unattended Ground, Sea, and Air Sensor Technologies and Applications XIII; 804602 (2011) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.883906
Event: SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing, 2011, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

The presence of snipers in modern conflicts leads to high insecurity for the soldiers. In order to improve the soldier's protection against this threat, the French German Research Institute of Saint-Louis (ISL) initiated studies in the domain of acoustic localization of shots. Mobile antennas mounted on the soldier's helmet were initially used for real-time detection, classification and localization of sniper shots. It showed good performances in land scenarios, but also in urban scenarios if the array was in the shot corridor, meaning that the microphones first detect the direct wave and then the reflections of the Mach and muzzle waves. As soon as the acoustic arrays were not near to the shot corridor (only reflections are detected) this solution lost its efficiency and erroneous estimated position were given. In order to estimate the position of the shooter in every kind of urban scenario, ISL started studying time reversal techniques. Knowing the position of every reflective object in the environment (buildings, walls, ...) it should be possible to estimate the position of the shooter. First, a synthetic propagation algorithm has been developed and validated for real scale applications. It has then been validated for small scale models, allowing us to test our time reversal based algorithms in our laboratory. In this paper we discuss all the challenges that are induced by the application of sniper detection using time reversal techniques. We will discuss all the hard points that can be encountered and try to find some solutions in order to optimize the use of this technique.

Citation Download Citation

S. Hengy, P. Hamery, S. De Mezzo, and P. Duffner "Networked localization of sniper shots using acoustics", Proc. SPIE 8046, Unattended Ground, Sea, and Air Sensor Technologies and Applications XIII, 804602 (20 May 2011); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.883906

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