ISTI’s acoustic transient (e.g. gunshot or any other) event detection and localization technologies exploit low-cost distributed sensors with local processing capabilities. Key benefits include: better capture of muzzle blast and ballistic shockwave in urban environments, lower false alarm, real-time response, robustness to loss of sensor nodes, low hardware complexity, flexibility to configure a dynamic local network and ease in deployment. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) allows for control over the sensors and network while providing an overall assessment picture. Unlike existing gunshot detection and gunshot localization systems, the distributed sensing solutions (algorithms and hardware/software) developed by ISTI can support different sensors including acoustic, seismic and IR.
System Features
Each sensor node detects the gunshot and estimates time of arrivals of muzzle blast and/or shockwave components using a proprietary sensor-level detection system. These together with a small set of discriminatory features are then transmitted to the base station.
Our patented algorithm allows for accurate bullet trajectory and shooter location estimation using the received information from each sensor node while rejecting more than 95% of competing false alarm.
A single integrated transient event assessment picture is provided to the user to show the detected and localized gunshot and the weapon types in a dynamic and fast evolving environment.
Each sensor node consists of only one microphone together with an FPGA processor, memories, onboard radio, and a battery pack. Versatility allows for multi-modality sensing as well as flexible remote program activation and monitoring.
The nodes are easy to deploy in fixed or mobile settings to configure a flexible local sensor network depending on the specific scenario.
Key Advantages
Reduced False Alarms:
An important benefit of ISTI’s system, which existing system lack, is the ability to distinguish battlefield events from all commonly occurring false acoustic transient events (e.g., engine firing, firecrackers, car door slams).
Improved Performance:
ISTI’s acoustic system offers accuracy of approximately ±1 degrees for trajectory angle estimation and 1% for range accuracy.
Flexible Hardware:
The system hardware is built around a multi-channel sensor board with a flexible field programmable gate array (FPGA) that can implement many sophisticated signal processing and sensor-level operations in real-time.
Stealthy & Robust Operation:
ISTI’s distributed sensor nodes are small (5.5in length, 2.75in height, and 3.25in width), low-cost (<$500/node) and hence amenable for stealthy operation needed for many applications. Additionally, since the sensors are randomly distributed forming a network, the system is robust to loss of nodes.
