Boomerang: Beating The Ambush & Saving Lives
Profile of a super high-tech detection system that warns soldiers of incoming gunshots and pinpoints the shooter’s hideout!
Before the FBI busted a group of six would-be terrorists in early May as they planned an attack on Fort Dix in New Jersey, many Americans couldn’t envision a domestic need for the Boomerang III, a high-tech mobile system that detects a gunshot’s shock waves and pinpoints the shooter’s location.
The Boomerang system was developed and manufactured by BBN Technologies (BBN) of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It uses passive acoustic detection and computer-based signal processing to detect enemy shooters. More than 700 of these devices have been shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan since the system’s development in 2003. The Boomerang_which is a compact array of mast-mounted microphones_is mounted to buildings, Humvees, Stryker armored vehicles and even hand-pulled carts to help U.S. soldiers and Marines locate shooters within a second of the shot. It works with more than 95% accuracy whether it’s used in close-up urban settings or in open rural areas where it zeros in on shooters firing from their weapons’ maximum ranges.
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