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Systems and methods with improved three-dimensional source location processing including constraint of location solutions to a two-dimensional plane

  • US 8,369,184 B2
  • Filed: 01/26/2010
  • Issued: 02/05/2013
  • Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2009
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method of determining/solving an origin location of a source of an acoustic weapon fire signal or event by use of two or more sensing elements or receivers, the method comprising:

  • processing information, via one or more computer processing components of a weapon fire location system that is associated with one or more acoustic receivers, including;

    obtaining a plane of constraint characterized as a two-dimensional plane defining a surface on which a perpetrator of the weapon fire incident is located and in which the source is likely to exist/occur, the plane of constraint being a bounded region within which a subject weapon fire incident was detected;

    creating one or more virtual receiver(s) each associated with a respective real receiver, each virtual receiver being constructed as having the same signal arrival time as its respective real receiver but at a virtual position determined by reflecting the respective real receiver around the two-dimensional plane of constraint;

    processing signals calculated as coming from one or more virtual sensing elements each characterized as being located on a first side of the plane of constraint in a symmetrical position that is a mirror image position, across from a corresponding real sensing element on an opposite side of the plane;

    constraining possible origin locations of the acoustic signal or event to be located in the plane of constraint; and

    determining the origin location as a function of positions of the real sensing elements and the virtual sensing elements, time-of-arrival information of acoustic energy from the source to the real sensing elements, and virtual time-of-arrival information provided by the one or more processing components as representative of signals calculated as between the source and the virtual sensing elements, via three-dimensional trilateration of relative time-of-arrival data from the sensing elements.

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