Problem+Space


 * Problem Space: **
 * Snipers have become the second greatest cause of fatalities in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 * Enemy fighters were shooting at convoys. The noise from the vehicles often resulted in our soldiers and marines being unaware they were under an attack until bullets hit them or their vehicles.
 * Even if soldiers realize they are under attack, they usually have a hard time figuring out where the shots are coming from.


 * Quote from a reporter named Noah Shachtman: “Last month, in the Iraqi town of Tarmiyah, I spent time with soldiers who’d been hit with roadside bombs- and stalked by a professional-grade sniper. The explosives were treated as a fact of life; no one seemed to give them that much thought, even after a convoy was hit. But the sniper, he was different. He had killed two soldiers, and wounded seven more. And, as a result, soldiers in Tarmiyah were spooked to go outside, even for a few minutes. Just about the first war story anybody told me was about a close encounter with the shooter.”
 * Picture of an Iraqi Shiite militia sniper shooting at US troops from an empty building in Najaf, Iraq.
 * As a result of these continuous attacks and the casualties they were inflicting, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approached DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to develop a solution to this problem in Iraq and Afghanistan
 * Proposed requirements for this technology:
 * 1) Shooter localization to plus or minus 15 degree accuracy within one second of the shot
 * 2) The ability to detect shots within a range of one to 30 meters
 * 3) Ability to detect and localize fire from AK-47s and other small arms at ranges from 50 to 150 meters
 * 4) Reliable performance in urban environments with low buildings
 * 5) Operable when mounted on a vehicle moving up to 60 MPH on various types of terrain
 * 6) Ability to withstand sand, pebbles, rain, and light foliage impacts
 * 7) Ability to deliver alert information in both a voice announcement and on an LED display
 * 8) Microphone array and electronics box must be able to be replaced in the field


 * Solution: Boomerang **
 * Developed and manufactured by BBN technologies of Cambridge, MA (Raytheon) in 2003.
 * First prototype was developed in 65 days called Boomerang I. Challenges to overcome were filtering out noise from the vehicle on which it is mounted (engine and static sounds from the radio), ignoring sounds similar to gunshots such as fireworks or a car backfiring, factoring in bullet ricochets, as well as the ability to ignore outgoing fire from U.S. soldiers.
 * Changes were made to the original model after testing and the newest unit being developed is boomerang III.
 * Mounted to buildings, Humvees, Stryker armored vehicles and even hand-pulled carts. They are also mounted at checkpoints and on top of compound walls, hospitals and other military installations.
 * The boomerang attaches on a mast to the rear of a vehicle and uses an array of seven small microphone sensors.
 * Sensors detect and measure the muzzle blast and the supersonic shock wave from a bullet traveling through the air.
 * Since bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, a shockwave is created from air particles being pushed aside.
 * As the gun is fired and the bullet’s shockwave expands outward, a computer program records the different times at which the shockwave arrives at each microphone.
 * Boomerang then uses sophisticated algorithms to compute:
 * 1) The direction the bullet is coming from
 * 2) Distance above the ground
 * 3) Range to the shooter


 * Once this information is computed, users receive simultaneous visual and auditory information on the shooters location from an LED 12-hour clock image display panel as well as a speaker. The system then resets for subsequent shot detection.