A mobile acoustic sensor fusion network using biologically inspired sensors and synchronization

Hostile fire detection is a critical component of situational awareness in the asymmetric battlefields of ongoing and future conflicts. The ability to detect and localize sources of hostile fire in difficult environments can dramatically increase the survivability of dismounted warfighters. Existing individual acoustic hostile fire sensors provide useful information, but are prone to heading errors, variable bearing and range accuracy, as well as reliability issues due to false alarms, limiting the actionability of the information. The warfighter can have significantly improved hostile fire sensor performance through information fusion. By leveraging existing sensors as a sensor network, the improvements come without additional weight, equipment, or power draw on the already overburdened soldier. Key to this objective is the ability to synchronize sensors over the network accurately, without using large amounts of power or network bandwidth, even when GPS-denied. Bio-inspired synchronization enables the proposed network infrastructure and makes possible sensor fusion algorithms on mobile platforms.