Used in 90 cities, including Cincinnati and Columbus, ShotSpotter uses a combination of sensors, algorithms and artificial intelligence to find gunfire in real time.
ShotSpotter breaks down its technology into three sections: detection and location, classification and notification, with all three areas working together to find, locate and notify police of gunfire.
Here’s how the app says it works:
Detection and Location:
- Software filters out background noise, such as traffic and wind, and listens for sounds with gunfire characteristics. These are called pulses.
- If the sensor detects pulse, it extracts those features, such as sharpness, strength, duration and decay time.
- If at least three sensors detect a pulse believed to be a gunshot, the sensor sends data to cloud servers where technology determines a precise location based off the time difference of arrival and angle of arrival.
Classification:
- Algorithms consider the distance from the sound source, pattern matching and other methods to classify the sound.
- The machine classifier compares the sound to a large database of known gunfire and other community sounds to determine if it is gunfire.
- Once classified as likely gunfire, the incident is sent to experts in ShotSpotter's Incident Review Center for additional analyzing. It is then published to police or dismissed.
Notification:
- Notifications are triggered once an incident is confirmed as gunfire.
- Gunfire alerts are pushed to ShotSpotter's mobile, desktop and browser apps.
- From initial gunfire to alert, the entire process takes less than 60 seconds.
News Center 7's I-Team took a closer look at ShotSpotter and spoke to area law enforcement agencies about the possibility of bringing it to the Miami Valley. For more details, tune in Tuesday, May 21, at 5:30 p.m.
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