This paper is a compressive and concise disclosure, relating to a real-world, real-time application for a wireless sensor network. Specifically, this is a detailed case study of the design, integration, and testing of acoustic sensors that converge data into a working computational manifold for the mitigation of acoustic multipath effects, which typically overwhelmed prior methods. The problem complexity includes the simultaneous existence of multiple-location shooting snipers with significant acoustic echo, distortion, and interference phenomena in the recursive asymmetric interstitial regions of ordinary urban landscape topologies.

The paper includes an insightful introduction to this increasingly typical scenario of twenty-first century combat, and a detailed recital of the prototype system, including a penetrating analysis of the design criteria, and practical decision elections for the hardware platform, the software architecture, the theory and implementation of practical detection schema, and the application-specific necessities of routing integrated time synchronization. There is also a detailed explanation of sensor fusion, particularly muzzle blast fusion, which requires consistency for resolution of time of arrival data with an associated elucidated search algorithm, and shockwave fusion, which apparently requires multiple orders of potential muzzle blast fusion, like exploration with an associated elucidated trajectory search algorithm, particularly including an embedded range estimation problem. Furthermore, the paper explicitly presents a clear detailed evaluation of actual field trial e!rror sources, and analysis techniques peculiar to the system test study, including muzzle blast fusion results, muzzle blast fusion sensitivity, shockwave fusion results, and shockwave fusion sensitivity.

Simply stated, 11 authors have successfully collaborated to share a great breadth and depth of experience, in the development, testing, and honest critique of a viable cutting-edge sensor network. Clearly, this work is the summary of a larger collection of reports and working papers, each of which is probably a further testimony to the professionalism of the authors. Nevertheless, the advances demonstrated in this report represent a brilliant case study of doing lots of things right in the integration of a large multi-parametric interdisciplinary system.

However, this mitigation of acoustic multipath effects for a multi-sensor system seems to inadvertently also describe the components and integration of a noninvasive medical system, which may provide diagnostic insight. Or perhaps this paper simply describes the nontrivial scaling up and tuning of cutting edge acoustical imaging systems, which are already being used in medical research. Regardless, we can hope that this and similar systems will contribute to the invalidation of urban warfare as a theater of armed conflict.