Tightening the Noose with Technology

USAF is using SBIR's for R&D companies develop systems that will enable UAV/RPA's see where a gunshot came from.  Just like Kerodin said, the work arounds are getting harder each day with technology advances.

Read through all the nice fun projects they want companies to develop.

SOURCE

AF121-102 TITLE: Detection of Hostile Fire from the Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA)

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Sensors

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: Develop a lightweight RPA Wide Field of View (WFOV) sensor system to detect, classify, direction of discharge and geolocate weapons fire, with sufficient accuracy and timeliness to support both direct and indirect engagement.

DESCRIPTION: The Air Force has the mission to perform reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) from RPAs. The challenge is to meet a large area of ground coverage in support of persistent Wide Field of View (WFOV) imaging motion detection sensor systems. WFOV imaging motion detection sensors are typically low frame rate (2-30 Frames/s) compared to a fire detection system (1000-1500 frames/s) and may miss weapon fire events. The goal of this effort is to provide an event (enemy and friendly weapons fire) detection system that can provide real-time notification that can be overlaid on WFOV motion imagery by sensor operators. Data to be provided to sensor operators is to include weapons class (i.e., rifle, mortar, RPG, and shoulder fire missile weapons), direction of fire, location/geocoordinates of fire or general explosive events, and high-heat events such as camp fires and building fires. This sensor must be designed such that it can detect from a minimum altitude of 25,000 feet under live fire captive carry test conditions on a benign battlefield.

Basic sensing technologies and signal processing subsystems must have reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) for a hostile fire detection sensor on a current or near-term RPA platform to perform this mission. RPAs are becoming the primary platform for persistent battlefield surveillance.  The requirement for extended time on station determines to a great extent the available weight allocation for any hostile fire sensor system. Future RPA hostile fire sensor systems will take the form of Line Replaceable Units for legacy sensor payloads currently in use on the RPA fleet; therefore, the SWaP consumption of hostile fire sensor systems must emulate that of previous generation sensor systems without hostile fire sensing capabilities.

The hostile fire sensor system must demonstrate the capability to operate with both low false alarm rates and relatively high probability of detection under operational conditions. The additional capability to perform threat geolocation in support of not only direct attack, but indirect attack, necessitate a close coupling between the sensor system and some form of inertial measurement capability either integral to the sensor or available as part of the mission flight package for the aerial platform. The feasibility of meeting various sensor performance metrics using trade-space analysis must be performed using sensor component characteristics and available field measurements of weapon signatures.

The determination of military utility of a hostile fire sensor will be heavily dependent on its capacity to distinguish between friendly and hostile fire in order to avoid fratricide. There are different levels of fidelity currently defined for hostile fire sensor systems; most systems currently differentiate among weapon classes, but lack a significant capability to confidently declare a weapon type within a class.

Modeling and analysis is required to show the efficacy of the approach for different classes of threat systems. The prototype design is expected to be heavier and less capable than an operational sensor, but the design should address SWaP traceability between the captive carry prototype and an ultimate operational configuration for the hostile fire sensor. A Phase I/Phase II activity involving high fidelity scene generation, hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HWIL), operational tower and flight testing is desired. The objective is to demonstrate the technology can provide greater than 99 percent false alarm rejection rate and greater than 95 percent detection rate for urban and battlefield small arms and large arms settings. The hostile fire sensor system should be self contained, with the exception of external power, to operate and collect performance data for both ground and air live fire demonstrations.