June 01, 2005
Gunfire Monitoring System Moves from Valley Lab to Iraq
"ShotSpotter"... is credited with reducing celebratory gunfire across the country, helping to track down at least one serial sniper and saving an inestimable number of lives. Now the burgeoning company... is preparing to deploy new wireless systems in Iraq able to warn soldiers about enemy snipers within moments of the first shot.
"At the outset, we had trouble differentiating gunfire from firecrackers," says CEO James Beldock. "Now we can identify everything from bottle rockets to rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices and, of course, regular weapons."
It's a far cry from the five-sensor network initially deployed in Redwood City (CA) in 1995 that could be fooled by a car's backfire.
The basic idea behind the ShotSpotter system uses trigonometry, or triangulation, to home in on the source of sound. Networked sensors with synchronized timers are placed at specific coordinates on buildings and telephone poles throughout the area to be monitored. When a loud noise goes off, each sensor reports the time at which the sound was heard. If at least three of the sensors report the noise, a computer doing calculations based on the speed of sound can pinpoint within a few feet where the blast originated.
The system then takes a few more fractions of a second to analyze the sound and verify that it wasn't a slammed door or a dropped plank of wood. If the system confirms the sound was gunfire, police dispatchers see a red dot pop up on a computerized map, indicating where and when the shot went off.
Permanently installed ShotSpotter systems so far have been deployed in half a dozen cities, including Redwood City, Los Angeles and Charleston, S.C. But it was a temporary system, deployed by the round-the-clock efforts of the company's entire staff, that contributed to the capture of the Interstate 270 sniper in Columbus, Ohio, late last year."
"Forensic evidence from a drive-by shooting"
11 shots fired by two gunmen in vehicle moving NNW @ 9mph
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