Investigating the potential of UAV for gunshot DoA estimation and shooter localization

This paper presents an approach to obtain stationary shooter localization in a Cartesian plane using a moving array of microphones. A single array is embedded in an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a quadcopter, to explore benefits provided by its intrinsic mobility. We propose a model which is based on geometrical acoustics and that assumes the gunshot signals as being buried in strong noise generated by propellers. Generalized cross correlation algorithms are used to estimate the Direction of Arrival (DoA) of the impulsive gunshot signals and, finally, bearings-only target motion analysis techniques are applied to estimate potential shooters localization from the noisy DoAs.