US 12,352,884 B2Granted

Outdoor wireless gunshot locating system for securing sited assets

AssigneeEagl Technology, Inc.

InventorsBoaz Raz, Clay Davidson, Everett Robinson

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Abstract

Disclosed herein are wireless networks of gunshot detector arrays providing the firing location and trajectory of a gunshot, while being tolerant of clock drift among the network. Individual gunshot detectors may be battery-powered employing one or more microphones. Detectors may time-synchronize infrequently to conserve power. Detectors may communicate wirelessly to a central device that evaluates gunshot candidates, associates those candidates between detectors to individual gunshot events, and performs calculations to arrive at a solution for a gunshot direction and/or origin. Combinations of contemporaneous gunshot candidates may be reviewed for a best positional solution. The location of gunshot events may be displayed on an overhead image or map, to persons providing remedial actions, optionally with trajectories and potential zones of impact and damaged assets.

Claims25

Dependent claims

A system for monitoring an area containing sited assets and alerting to the presence and location of gunfire, said system comprising:

an arrayed network comprising at least two sensors, each of said sensors comprising a microphone, a microcontroller comprising non-volatile memory, a battery, a wireless transceiver and an antenna;
a central device comprising a wireless transceiver and an antenna configured for communication with said sensors, said central device further comprising a microprocessor functional to access non-volatile memory, said central device further comprising a communication port operable to supply gunshot location information to a destination;
wherein each of said sensors is operable to:
(a) monitor the audio energy in its vicinity,
(b) take repeated samples from said microphone and compute at least one energy value, and
(c) wirelessly transmit a gunshot candidate to said central device comprising the computed energy values;
further wherein said central device is operable to:
(d) receive gunshot candidates each comprising at least one energy value,
(e) correlate gunshot candidates arriving from both sensors to single potential gunshot events,
(f) derive a ratio from a comparison of the energy values within correlated gunshot candidates,
(g) from derived ratios of energy values, calculate potential locations of a gunshot event, and
(h) communicate gunshot location information to a destination, over said communication port;
wherein said central device is located within wireless communication range of each of said sensors.

10 more elements

A method of resolving gunshot candidates to gunshot event locations within a monitored area, the monitored area having located thereto an array of a plurality of gunshot sensors, each gunshot sensor functional to sample the audio energy in its vicinity and detect potential gunshot events, each sensor further functional to convert the energy envelope of a potential gunshot event into a gunshot candidate comprising at least one energy value, said method comprising the steps of:

receiving gunshot candidates from a plurality of gunshot sensors, each gunshot candidate containing an energy value;
correlating gunshot candidates arriving from a pair of gunshot sensors within a specified interval to potential gunshot events;
for potential gunshot events, deriving a ratio representing the magnitude of energy values at the first in a pair of gunshot sensors against the magnitude of energy values at the second in the pair;
calculating potential locations of a gunshot event from a derived ratio, and
communicating calculated gunshot location information to a location of use.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.