Papers › Precision and accuracy of acoustic gunshot location in an urban environment
Precision and accuracy of acoustic gunshot location in an urban environment
Robert B. Calhoun, Clark Dunson, Murphey L. Johnson, Scott R. Lamkin, William R. Lewis, Robert L. Showen, Mark A. Sompel, Lester P. Wollman
The muzzle blast caused by the discharge of a firearm generates a loud, impulsive sound that propagates away from the shooter in all directions. The location of the source can be computed from time-of-arrival measurements of the muzzle blast on multiple acoustic sensors at known locations, a technique known as multilateration. The multilateration problem is considerably simplified by assuming straight-line propagation in a homogeneous medium, a model for which there are multiple published solutions. Live-fire tests of the ShotSpotter gunshot location system in Pittsburgh, PA were analyzed off-line under several algorithms and geometric constraints to evaluate the accuracy of acoustic multilateration in a forensic context. Best results were obtained using the algorithm due to Mathias, Leonari and Galati under a two-dimensional geometric constraint. Multilateration on random subsets of the participating sensor array show that 96% of shots can be located to an accuracy of 15 m or better when six or more sensors participate in the solution.
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