Security Dealer & Integrator

FEB 2018

Find news and information for the executive corporate security director, CSO, facility manager and assets protection manager on issues of policy, products, incidents, risk management, threat assessments and preparedness.

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It relies on its integration with third- party video systems – in essence, think of the gunshot detection as an alarm input into a VMS, prompting operator analysis and response. Cameron Javdani, Louroe's Director of Sales and Marketing, sees the trend toward the increased use of big data and automation making these systems even better, and he notes key verticals for the technology, including educa- tion, corporate, government (including city surveillance) and healthcare. ShotSpotter for Public Safety Applications Founded in 1996, when it was issued its first patent, ShotSpotter signifi- cantly expanded aer getting VC fund- ing in 2004. e company's technol- ogy is home-grown, with 30 patents to its credit, and it has been deployed in more than 90 cities worldwide. Virtually every public safety appli- cation is a custom-designed sensor array, optimized for a given geography. Occasionally, positioning of light poles and how a municipality uses them may dictate sensor patterns. Inputs from 3-4 sensors are needed to triangulate the gunshot location, although more inputs may be picked up from addi- tional sensors in the array. "e sensor arrays are engineered to compensate for possible loss of sensors to provide redundancy and resiliency," explains Gary Bunyard, the company's SVP of Public Safety Solutions. ShotSpotter splits its marketing into two areas: Public safety, focused on relevant outdoor applications; and M aybe it was the ever-present sound of bub- ble wrap getting popped over the holidays, or, more seriously, the inun- dation and disgust many of us have felt over the past months over an endless parade of senseless shootings. In any event, I felt compelled to look deeper into the topic of gunshot detection as the subject of this month's column. "When all preventative security measures have failed, gunshot detec- tion systems can help provide a valu- able tool when paired with appropri- ately developed human responses," explains Brian Coulombe, Principal at DVS Security. "Like all security technology, a human being still has to interpret the situation, validate the alarm and react appropriately." I analyzed four companies offer- ing gunshot detection systems to try to gain further perspective on the different approaches: Louroe's Audio Analytics Louroe has partnered with Netherlands-based Sound Intelligence to enhance its sound-related prod- uct offering with audio analytics. Introduced in 2015, the analytic algo- rithms are targeted at the applications of not only gunshot detection, but also aggression detection, glass break, healthcare monitoring and car alarms. e analytics work by using sound pressure levels at various frequencies, rates of rise, and amplitude – just some of the physical inputs into the system. 20 Security Dealer & Integrator / www.SecurityInfoWatch.com February 2018 Hearing is Believing A closer look at a few of the hot gunshot detection products on the market Tech Trends BY RAY COULOMBE security, covering other outdoor and indoor applications. Each outdoor sensor has its own cellular capability and communi- cates into a cloud-based algorithm which, aer the number crunching is performed, reports its findings to operators at the company's Incident Review Center for further analysis and verification. e automated first phase is said to be about 80-percent accurate, where the human-based second phase gets closer to full accuracy. Response time is typically 25 seconds, although SLAs usually provide for less than 60 sec- onds 90 percent of the time. While caliber discrimination is not regarded as viable, detection of multi- ple shooters, high-capacity automatic weapons, as well as direction and rate of movement of shooter is doable now. Further, ShotSpotter is testing various AI/cognitive platforms to determine their efficacy in improving its machine classification capability. SDS: Raytheon-Based Technology Adapted for Commercial A system called Bullet Ears was developed by a company called BBN Technologies – later acquired by Raytheon – and tested by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for use in military environ- ments as early as 1996. Bullet Ears used a microphone network to detect the shock wave from a bullet and com- puter analysis to plot the bullet's path. Bullet Ears eventually evolved into the Boomerang system – said to be the most widely fielded gunshot technol- ogy in the world – with its proving ground coming in hot combat areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan According to Raytheon: "Whether vehicle-mounted or in a fixed position, Boomerang detects small arms fire travelling toward it for bullets pass- ing within approximately 30 meters of the mast-mounted compact array of

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