Czech scientists developing new acoustic gun detector
Czech scientists have developed a system that uses artificial intelligence to detect shooting and the type of weapon used. In a critical situation, the acoustic detector can provide the police with essential information in a matter of seconds.
The tragic shooting at Charles University has sparked a heated debate on Czech gun ownership legislation. It has also raised the question of safety measures that could help minimize the risk and help the crisis response to such incidents in the future.
Scientists from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague are now working on a new type of acoustic gun detector. While a device of this kind has already been used for some time, their detector is the first to use neural networks to identify the type of weapon that was used to fire a shot, says Jakub Svatoš from the faculty’s Department of Measurement:
“The uniqueness of this system is the use of neural networks to identify the calibre of the weapon that fired the shot. It differs from other systems in that, in addition to detecting and locating the shooter, it can also determine with a high probability what type of weapon was fired.”
The acoustic detector consists of one or more separate units that constantly monitor their surroundings, says Mr. Svatoš:
“In the event of a dangerous situation, the location of all the acoustic units that detected the shooting is sent to a remote server. The server will not only localize the event and ascertain whether it was really shooting, but also classify the type of gun using neural networks.”
To be able to detect the different types of sounds, scientists have to train the detector, providing it with a set of data that the neural network stores, both gun-shot sounds as well as sounds that only resemble shooting, explains Mr. Svatoš:
“We use our own recordings of both false alarms, by which I mean acoustic events resembling shooting, and common types of weapons used by the Czech military or used for sport shooting. But of course it is not a problem to train the detector for other types of weapons.”
According to Mr. Svatoš, one of the biggest advantages of the detector developed at the Czech Technical University is its high reliability:
“Our detector can distinguish a gunshot from another acoustic event with a success rate of more than 99 percent. And it can detect the type of weapon that was fired with a 90 percent success rate.”
“Another advantage of the system is that it does not need any human operators. The detector is autonomous and in the event of an event being detected, it is able to alert the relevant forces within a few seconds.”
Experts from the Czech Technical University are currently working on several prototypes of their gun detector. Once their work is completed, they would like to offer their know-how free of charge to anyone interested.
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