The timeline analysis system (TAS) was developed by Rome Laboratory to assist intelligence analysts with the comprehension of large amounts of information. Under the TAS program data visualization, manipulation and reasoning tools were developed in close coordination with end users. The initial TAS prototype was developed for foreign command and control analysts at Space Command in Colorado Springs and was fielded there in 1989. The TAS prototype replaced manual paper timeline maintenance and analysis techniques and has become an integral part of Space Command's information infrastructure. TAS was designed to be domain independent and has been tailored and proliferated to a number of other users. The TAS program continues to evolve because of strong user support. User funded enhancements and Rome Lab funded technology upgrades have significantly enhanced TAS over the years and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. TAS was recently provided to the New York State Police (NYSP) for evaluation using actual case data. Timeline analysis it turns out is a popular methodology used in law enforcement. The evaluation has led to a more comprehensive application and evaluation project sponsored by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). This paper describes the capabilities of TAS, results of the initial NYSP evaluation and the plan for a more comprehensive NYSP evaluation.

This paper describes an effort to provide mechanisms for integration of existing law enforcement databases with the temporal analysis system (TAS) -- an application for analysis and visualization of military intelligence data. Such integration mechanisms are essential for bringing advanced military intelligence data handling software applications to bear on the analysis of data used in criminal investigations. Our approach involved applying a software application for intelligence message handling to the problem of data base conversion. This application provides mechanisms for distributed processing and delivery of converted data records to an end-user application. It also provides a flexible graphic user interface for development and customization in the field.

Examiner is an automated fired cartridge case identification system utilizing a dual-use neural network pattern recognition technology, called the statistical-multiple object detection and location system (S-MODALS) developed by Booz(DOT)Allen & Hamilton, Inc. in conjunction with Rome Laboratory. S-MODALS was originally designed for automatic target recognition (ATR) of tactical and strategic military targets using multisensor fusion [electro-optical (EO), infrared (IR), and synthetic aperture radar (SAR)] sensors. Since S-MODALS is a learning system readily adaptable to problem domains other than automatic target recognition, the pattern matching problem of microscopic marks for firearms evidence was analyzed using S-MODALS. The physics; phenomenology; discrimination and search strategies; robustness requirements; error level and confidence level propagation that apply to the pattern matching problem of military targets were found to be applicable to the ballistic domain as well. The Examiner system uses S-MODALS to rank a set of queried cartridge case images from the most similar to the least similar image in reference to an investigative fired cartridge case image. The paper presents three independent tests and evaluation studies of the Examiner system utilizing the S-MODALS technology for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Access control and authentication techniques were developed within the framework of face recognition. The corresponding face recognition tasks considered herein include, (1) surveilling a gallery of images for the presence of specific probes, and (2) CBIR subject to correct ID ('match') displaying specific facial landmarks such as wearing glasses. We describe a novel approach for fully automated face recognition and show its feasibility on a large data base of facial images (FERET). Our approach, based on a hybrid architecture consisting of an ensemble of connectionist networks -- radial basis functions (RBF) -- and inductive decision trees (DT), combines the merits of 'discrete and abstractive' features with those of 'holistic template matching.' Training for face detection takes place over both positive and negative examples. The benefits of our architecture include (1) detection of faces using decision trees, and (2) robust face recognition using consensus methods over ensembles of RBF networks. Experimental results, proving the feasibility of our approach, yield (1) 96% accuracy, using cross validation, for surveillance on a data base consisting of 904 images corresponding to 350 subjects, and (2) 93% accuracy, using cross validation, for CBIR subject to correct ID match tasks on a data base of 200 images.

Rome Laboratory, one of the United States Air Force's four Super Laboratories, has been designated by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to be its National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center for the Northeast (NLECTC-NE). A Department of Defense leader in research and development (R&D) in speech and audio processing for over 25 years, Rome Laboratory's main thrust in these R&D areas has focused on developing technology to improve the collection, handling, identification and intelligibility of communication signals. Rome Laboratory speech and audio technology is unique and particularly appropriate for application to law enforcement requirements because it addresses the military need for time critical decisions and actions, operating within noisy environments, and use by uncooperative speakers in tactical, real-time applications. Speech enhancement and speaker recognition are the primary technologies discussed in this paper. Automatic language and dialect identification, automatic gisting, spoken language translation, co-channel speaker separation and audio manipulation technologies are briefly discussed.

Criminal offenders are increasingly administratively processed by automated multimedia information systems. During this processing, case and offender biographical data, mugshot photos, fingerprints and other valuable information and media are collected by law enforcement officers. As part of their criminal investigations, law enforcement officers are routinely called to solve criminal cases based upon limited evidence . . . evidence increasingly comprised of human DNA, ballistic casings and projectiles, chemical residues, latent fingerprints, surveillance camera facial images and voices. As multimedia systems receive greater use in law enforcement, traditional approaches used to index text data are not appropriate for images and signal data which comprise a multimedia database. Multimedia systems with integrated advanced pattern matching tools will provide law enforcement the ability to effectively locate multimedia information based upon content, without reliance upon the accuracy or completeness of text-based indexing.

The heterogeneity of remotely accessible databases -- with respect to contents, query language, semantics, organization, etc. -- presents serious obstacles to convenient querying. The SIMS (single interface to multiple sources) system addresses this global integration problem. It does so by defining a single language for describing the domain about which information is stored in the databases and using this language as the query language. Each database to which SIMS is to provide access is modeled using this language. The model describes a database's contents, organization, and other relevant features. SIMS uses these models, together with a planning system drawing on techniques from artificial intelligence, to decompose a given user's high-level query into a series of queries against the databases and other data manipulation steps. The retrieval plan is constructed so as to minimize data movement over the network and maximize parallelism to increase execution speed. SIMS can recover from network failures during plan execution by obtaining data from alternate sources, when possible. SIMS has been demonstrated in the domains of medical informatics and logistics, using real databases.

The right information, at the right time and place, is key to successful law enforcement. The information exists; the challenge is in getting the information to the law enforcement professionals in a usable form, when they need it. Over the last year, the authors have applied advanced information management technologies towards addressing this challenge, in concert with a complementary research effort in secure wireless network technology by SRI International. The goal of the combined efforts is to provide law enforcement professionals the ability to access a wide range of heterogeneous and legacy data sources (structured, as well as free text); process information into digital multimedia case folders; and create World Wide Web-based multimedia products, accessible by selected field investigators via Fortezza-enhanced secure web browsers over encrypted wireless communications. We discuss the results of our knowledge acquisition activities at federal, regional, and local law enforcement organizations; our technical solution; results of the one year development and demonstration effort; and plans for future research.

Critical event management at the Los Angeles County Regional Criminal Information Clearinghouse (LACRCIC) provides for the deconfliction of operations, such as reverse stings, arrests, undercover buys/busts, searches, surveillances, and site surveys in the Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino county area. During these operations, the opportunity for officer-to-officer confrontation is high, possibly causing a worse case scenario -- officers drawing on each other resulting in friendly fire injuries or casualties. In order to prevent local, state, and federal agencies in the Los Angeles area from experiencing this scenario, the LACRCIC provides around the clock critical event management services via its secure war room. The war room maintains a multicounty detailed street-level map base and geographic information system (GIS) application to support this effort. Operations are telephoned in by the participating agencies and posted in the critical event management system by war room analysts. The application performs both a proximity search around the address and a commonality of suspects search. If a conflict is found, the system alerts the analyst by sounding an audible alarm and flashing the conflicting events on the automated basemap. The analyst then notifies the respective agencies of the conflicting critical events so coordination or rescheduling can occur.

Virtual environment workspaces require the proper choice of user interfaces combined with highly realistic visualization techniques and behavior driven objects to enable effective user interaction. MITRE's virtual interactive environment provides an extension of the physical workspace into the virtual domain to support interactive design, visualization, and collaboration. This paper discusses visualization techniques and user interfaces which have proven effective in the application domain.

The ability to examine the planned position and movement of police vehicles, personnel, weapons, and status of police assets is an implied requirement in the conduct of police activities. Displays showing the time police vehicles leave on assignment, stops along their route, time of return to station, quantity of vehicles, types of weapons, radio frequencies, and other pertinent information could help in crisis situations. It would be especially helpful if it were easily accessible and simple to understand. Rome Laboratory developed a system for monitoring interrelated planned events and for changing these events to correct for deviations in the plan. The system is called force level execution (FLEX), and it displays information on timing charts, tables, and a geographic map background. The FLEX graphics enhance the military commander's ability to grasp the tactical situation which typically includes 2000 to 3000 air sorties per day. A sortie is a single flight of a single aircraft. Because the 'fog of war' causes unexpected events, status reports are needed, replanning options are generated, and new plans are issued to correct for these unexpected events. The authors believe there are law enforcement and other crisis situations that are analogous to some military scenarios. These may include state police operating over large geographical areas, coordination with county police operating over somewhat smaller areas, coordination with the county sheriff's office and city police, not only for criminal apprehension, but for disaster relief. Other participants in a crisis situation may include fire departments, ambulances, emergency medical vehicles, hospitals, rescue operations, etc. The position of police vehicles, foot patrolman, helicopters and emergency vehicles can all be superimposed upon a map background, with appropriate cultural features such as roads, rivers, bridges, state and country boundaries, etc. When police vehicles incorporate the global positioning system (GPS), an automated status display could potentially show the exact locations of these vehicles in real time. This paper shows how the Air Force is using this technology and how, in the author's opinion, FLEX might be adapted to law enforcement and disaster relief situations.

Within the context of law enforcement, several problems fall into the category of planning and scheduling under constraints. Examples include resource and personnel scheduling, and court scheduling. In the case of court scheduling, a schedule must be generated considering available resources, e.g., court rooms and personnel. Additionally, there are constraints on individual court cases, e.g., temporal and spatial, and between different cases, e.g., precedence. Finally, there are overall objectives that the schedule should satisfy such as timely processing of cases and optimal use of court facilities. Manually generating a schedule that satisfies all of the constraints is a very time consuming task. As the number of court cases and constraints increases, this becomes increasingly harder to handle without the assistance of automatic scheduling techniques. This paper describes artificial intelligence (AI) technology that has been used to develop several high performance scheduling applications including a military transportation scheduler, a military in-theater airlift scheduler, and a nuclear power plant outage scheduler. We discuss possible law enforcement applications where we feel the same technology could provide long-term benefits to law enforcement agencies and their operations personnel.

A breadboard ultrasound sensor was developed for remotely detecting and imaging concealed weapons. The breadboard sensor can detect metallic and non-metallic weapons concealed on a human body under heavy clothing at ranges up to 8 m and image the concealed weapons at ranges up to 5 m. This breadboard sensor has produced the only remote ultrasound images of concealed weapons ever published, including lexan (plastic) knives and a handgun concealed under a heavy sweatshirt at 15 feet. The remote imaging by ultrasound was made possible by several new technological developments. The sensor includes a novel, highly efficient source of high-power, tunable ultrasound radiation suitable for remote imaging in air. Together with millimeter-sized, highly sensitive ultrasound detectors and high-gain transceivers, these advances make possible the centimeter- resolution imaging of concealed weapons at ranges between 1 m and 5 m. The ultrasound images are processed by our IMAGE binary-thresholding program, which filters for noise, frequency, brightness, and contrast. To be developed is a brassboard sensor with an imaging array of ultrasound detectors, capable of real-time, video-frame-rate imaging of weapons concealed on moving humans.

Passive-millimeter-wave imaging (PMI) provides a powerful sensing tool for law enforcement, allowing an unobtrusive means for detecting concealed weapons, explosives, or contraband on persons or in baggage. Natural thermal emissions at millimeter wavelengths from bodies, guns, explosives, and other articles pass easily through clothing or other concealment materials, where they can be detected and converted into conventional 2-dimensional images. A new implementation of PMI has demonstrated a large-area, near- real-time staring capability for personnel inspection at standoff ranges of greater than 10 meters. In this form, PMI does not require operator cuing based on subjective 'profiles' of suspicious appearance or behaviors, which may otherwise be construed as violations of civil rights. To the contrary, PMI detects and images heat generated by any object with no predisposition as to its nature or function (e.g. race or gender of humans). As a totally passive imaging tool, it generates no radio-frequency or other radiation which might raise public health concerns. Specifics of the new PMI architecture are presented along with a host of imaging data representing the current state- of-the-art.

Millimeter-wave concealed weapon detection, based on the use of a fast scan short-range FMCW 94 GHz radar, was evaluated in a small business innovative research phase I under the Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) program. The feasibility of a fast circular scan technique invented by Chang Industry has been firmly established, with handgun images recorded. This fast scan technique is essential both for remote sensing and full-body fixed site scanner applications. Although only raw image data was obtained in Phase I, we propose to apply super-resolution image enhancements and target recognition software algorithms to provide more reliable detection. Endorsement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, to provide operational input and testing and evaluation, and the hiring of a consultant to plan for future program financing (including venture capital investment) make the project very attractive for commercialization.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has funded a dazzling array of 'high tech' solutions for many of the problems facing our military forces. Many of these 'solutions' have been effective for long range mass destruction but have not been applicable for the close-in hand-to-hand combat that we find in the streets. Our goal has been to convert 'high tech' DoD capabilities into cost effective tools to help law enforcement agencies do their jobs better. Surveillance systems presently used by law enforcement officers make extensive use of television, infrared and other line-of- sight surveillance hardware. However, these systems cannot tell what is happening on the other side of a wall, behind bushes, around the corner, in the dark or through a dense fog. A new sensor has been developed, based upon technology developed by the DoD for missile warhead fusing. This small, light weight, low power 'radar' is based upon the phenomena that optimized radio waves can penetrate non-metallic materials. This new surveillance capability can help provide information about what is in a wall, ceiling or floor or on the other side of a door or concrete wall. This paper discusses some applications to show how this radar works and some of the phenomenology which is unique to material penetrating radar systems.

We have designed and built an ultra-wideband differential radar that images targets moving behind walls, fences, trees, and other obstacles. We have demonstrated the differential-radar concept in anechoic, indoor, and outdoor environments. The outdoor demonstration proved the radar's ability to detect people moving behind walls and illustrated its capability for suppressing high-level clutter from the radar imagery.

Millimetrix' millimeter wave passive imaging technology offers the opportunity for rapid and remote detection of metallic and non-metallic weapons, plastic explosives, drugs, and other contraband concealed under multiple layers of clothing without the necessity of a direct physical search. The purely passive imaging technique relies solely on the existing natural emissions from the scene objects, does not expose the person to any man-made radiation, and is therefore completely harmless to the person being observed and to all others in the area. Screening can be done remotely and with as much discretion as the situation requires. The passive imaging approach to the detection of concealed weapons and contraband hidden under people's clothing works well at millimeter wavelengths because of a fortunate convergence of a number of key factors: (1) adequate resolution in a reasonable sensor size; (2) high transparency of virtually all clothing; and (3) the extraordinarily high emissivity of human flesh compared to the vast majority of other materials. Longer (microwave) wavelengths are impractical because of sensor size and resolution issues, and shorter (infrared) wavelengths are impractical because of the poor transparency of most clothing. The ability of millimeter wave emissions to penetrate many common building materials permits the remote observation, using active millimeter wave sensors, of people and other objects within a room from outside of that room. The resulting through-the-wall 'live' video images of people and furnishings will indicate their location, posture, and activity within a room which should be valuable knowledge to Special Operations, SWAT, and other military and law enforcement personnel prior to their entering that room. Millimeter wave radar imaging systems based on passive Millivision^R camera technology are being developed by Millimetrix (and other members of the MIRTAC TRP consortium) for through-the-wall imaging system (TWIS) applications.

This paper describes the specifications and capabilities of the integrated tracking unit (ITU) and its multiple applications are presented. The original ITU was developed by Coleman Research Corporation (CRC) for several federal law enforcement agencies over a four-year period and it has been used for friendly and unfriendly vehicle and person position tracking. The ITU has been down-sized to reduce its physical size, weight, and power requirements with respect to the first generation unit. The ITU consists of a global positioning system (GPS) receiver for precise position location and a cellular phone to transmit voice and data to a PC base station with a modem interface. This paper describes the down-sizing of the unit introduced in CRC's 'An Integrated Tracking Unit for Multiple Applications' paper presented at the 1995 Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center's symposium in Nashua, NH. This paper provides a description of the ITU and tested applications.

The corrections system in the U.S. is supervising over five million offenders. This number is rising fast and so are the direct and indirect costs to society. To improve supervision and reduce the cost of parole and probation, first generation home arrest systems were introduced in 1987. While these systems proved to be helpful to the corrections system, their scope is rather limited because they only cover an offender at a single location and provide only a partial time coverage. To correct the limitations of first- generation systems, second-generation wide area continuous electronic offender monitoring systems, designed to monitor the offender at all times and locations, are now on the drawing board. These systems use radio frequency location technology to track the position of offenders. The challenge for this technology is the development of reliable personal locator devices that are small, lightweight, with long operational battery life, and indoors/outdoors accuracy of 100 meters or less. At the center of a second-generation system is a database that specifies the offender's home, workplace, commute, and time the offender should be found in each. The database could also define areas from which the offender is excluded. To test compliance, the system would compare the observed coordinates of the offender with the stored location for a given time interval. Database logfiles will also enable law enforcement to determine if a monitored offender was present at a crime scene and thus include or exclude the offender as a potential suspect.

This paper discusses the R&D proposed and underdevelopment by Tracer Detection Technology Corp. (TDT) for a series of commercially viable products that will form the basis of a patented chemical vapor tag system to identify and locate drugs, crops, chemical compounds and currency. TDT has concentrated its efforts on user interface and applications in its R&D planning, and has worked closely with a number of U.S Government agencies to form an inter-agency user group to assist in funding and guidance for our efforts. Based on discussions with U.S. Customs, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Institute of Justice (at Rome Air Development Center), DARPA, Department of Defense, Drug Enforcement Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, there are a number of specific law enforcement problems that can be addressed with this technique.

Real-time automated surveillance for counteracting automobile larceny (RASCAL) is envisioned to be an automated monitoring and vehicle identification system that utilizes neural network technology to provide a non-intrusive detection system for identifying stolen vehicles on the nation's highways. Specific facets of the system that are presented include automatic scene analysis, vehicle classification, and a potential commercial off the shelf license plate reader for plate identification. The general approach is envisioned to include the generation of a target vehicle profile that can be downloaded to each of the remote video surveillance sites on the highway. The profile will be a predefined characterization containing the make, model, year, color and license plate of the target vehicle. The intelligent video processor, located at each remote camera site, will utilize the stolen vehicle profile and advanced neural network classification techniques to search the visual scene for a potential candidate of the stolen vehicle. An automated license plate reading system is used to confirm the identification of the vehicle. Once a potential stolen vehicle has been identified a snapshot of the vehicle, along with the vehicle profile, is transmitted back to the central control facility where law enforcement officials can take appropriate action. For this effort, a three sensor distributed configuration is envisioned.

A micro-miniature radio frequency (rf) transmitter has been developed and demonstrated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The objective of the rf transmitter development was to maximize the transmission distance while drastically shrinking the overall transmitter size, including antenna. Based on analysis and testing, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with a 16-GHz gallium arsenide (GaAs) oscillator and integrated on-chip antenna was designed and fabricated using microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) technology. Details of the development and the results of various field tests are discussed. The rf transmitter is applicable to covert surveillance and tracking scenarios due to its small size of 2.2 multiplied by 2.2 mm, including the antenna. Additionally, the 16-GHz frequency is well above the operational range of consumer-grade radio scanners, providing a degree of protection from unauthorized interception. Variations of the transmitter design have been demonstrated for tracking and tagging beacons, transmission of digital data, and transmission of real-time analog video from a surveillance camera. Preliminary laboratory measurements indicate adaptability to direct-sequence spread-spectrum transmission, providing a low probability of intercept and/or detection. Concepts related to law enforcement applications are presented.

A prototype 'smart' repeater that provides interoperability capabilities for radio communication systems in multi-agency and multi-user scenarios is being developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The smart repeater functions as a deployable communications platform that can be dynamically reconfigured to cross-link the radios of participating federal, state, and local government agencies. This interconnection capability improves the coordination and execution of multi-agency operations, including coordinated law enforcement activities and general emergency or disaster response scenarios. The repeater provides multiple channels of operation in the 30-50, 118-136, 138-174, and 403-512 MHz land mobile communications and aircraft bands while providing the ability to cross-connect among multiple frequencies, bands, modulation types, and encryption formats. Additionally, two telephone interconnects provide links to the fixed and cellular telephone networks. The 800- and 900-MHz bands are not supported by the prototype, but the modular design of the system accommodates future retrofits to extend frequency capabilities with minimal impact to the system. Configuration of the repeater is through a portable personal computer with a Windows-based graphical interface control screen that provides dynamic reconfiguration of network interconnections and formats.

The objective of this paper is to discuss research being conducted at Rome Laboratory in the area of mobile wireless communications. We have developed a differentially coherent spread spectrum communications modem with noise-like transmission properties that would make it difficult to detect and exploit. This modem has been simulated with excellent performance in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). We are now developing a detection process that will have good performance in the harsh mobile multipath environment inherent in most law enforcement and military operations.

Under funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for joint military and law enforcement technologies, demonstrations of secure information transfer in support of law enforcement and military operations other than war, using wireless and wired technology, were held in September 1996 at several locations in the United States. In this paper, the network architecture, protocols, and equipment supporting the demonstration's scenarios are presented, together with initial results, including lessons learned and desired system enhancements. Wireless networks of opportunity encompassed in-building (wireless-LAN), campus-wide (Metricom Inc.), metropolitan (AMPS cellular, CDPD), and national (one- and two-way satellite) systems. Evolving DARPA-sponsored packet radio technology was incorporated. All data was encrypted, using multilevel information system security initiative (MISSI)FORTEZZA technology, for carriage over unsecured and unclassified commercial networks. The identification and authentication process inherent in the security system permitted logging for database accesses and provided an audit trail useful in evidence gathering. Wireless and wireline communications support, to and between modeled crisis management centers, was demonstrated. Mechanisms for the guarded transport of data through the secret-high military tactical Internet were included, to support joint law enforcement and crisis management missions. A secure World Wide Web (WWW) browser forms the primary, user-friendly interface for information retrieval and submission. The WWW pages were structured to be sensitive to the bandwidth, error rate, and cost of the communications medium in use (e.g., the use of and resolution for graphical data). Both still and motion compressed video were demonstrated, along with secure voice transmission from laptop computers in the field. Issues of network bandwidth, airtime costs, and deployment status are discussed.

Natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes invariably result in disruption of the commercial communications infrastructure and can severely impede the delivery of emergency services by local and federal agencies. In addition, the public's inability to communicate with commercial service providers can substantially slow the recovery process. Since wide-spread destruction of communications plant and distribution systems takes a long time to rebuild, an attractive alternative would be to provide communications connectivity through an airborne platform configured as a communication node. From a high altitude, a single aircraft could provide line of sight connectivity between users that are not within line of sight of each other, and could relay communications through ground or satellite gateways to the national PSTN. This capability could be used to substitute for multiple base stations for fire and police as well as military relief workers using their normal mobile communications gear. The airborne platform could also serve as a wide area base station to replace cellular phone towers that have been destroyed; this would enable civilian access to communications services from existing cellular phones, but could also be used by relief workers carrying low-cost commercial handsets. This paper examines the technical methods for achieving these goals, identifies the equipment needed on the airborne platform, and discusses the performance that could be expected.

Law enforcement use of radio includes the rapid creation of networks for the dozens of law enforcement organizations who come together in situations as diverse as the TWA 800 disaster in New York or the SunFest celebration in Palm Beach. The software radio is a proven technology for rapidly building such interoperable networks, including seamless bridging cross sub-networks of different frequency bands, channel modulations and information formats. In addition, law enforcement must manage the costs of related radio base station infrastructure, mobile units and handsets. The software radio is a collection of engineering techniques for creating radio infrastructure that can be programmed for new standards and that can be dynamically updated with new software personalities even 'over the air,' reducing the need to purchase new hardware to remain current with emerging radio interface standards. Although relatively expensive today, continuing DoD, federal and commercial investment in software radio technology will bring products within the reach of law enforcement applications within the next few years. The Modular Multifunction Information Transfer Systems (MMITS) Forum provides further impetus for cost reductions through the market efficiencies of open architecture. This article summarizes software radio technology and key trends in the marketplace including the progress of the MMITS forum. Expanded law enforcement participation in this forum would accelerate the availability of low cost products for law enforcement.

The Mini-Transportable Communications Central (MTCC), developed by Rome Laboratories C3 Directorate, provides the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) with a transportable, fast reaction communications terminal. The MTCC is capable of operating as a self-contained miniature command center supporting efforts such as the President's War on Drugs, or the rescue services necessary in the wake of man-made or natural disasters. The MTCC is capable of communicating with field elements including ships, small water-craft, aircraft, other elements of the USCG law enforcement agencies (LEAs), the FAA, and a wide range of U.S. and foreign armed forces. The MTCC terminal is contained in a trailer-mounted shelter suitable for towing by a 3/4 ton truck or for transport by C-130 aircraft. The MTCC provides simultaneous one-way and two-way communications in the HF, VHF, and UHF frequency bands, as well as the INMARSAT international satellite band. The MTCC also offers communications through subscriber and trunk telephone connectivity via ISDN compatible PABX. The MTCC's three channel operations personnel cellular telephone system provides self-contained cellular telephone operations in the vicinity of the deployed shelter. In the USCG application, an operator console inside the air-conditioned shelter serves as the source and destination for voice, data, and fax traffic, by means of secure fax telephone, operator headsets, and a powerful computer workstation that provides word processing, e-mail, and data communications capabilities. The communications operator may reconfigure the system for a specific mission by means of patchfields that enable the selection of radios, encrypted or clear-text operations, audio termination, and antennas.

BBN has developed, tested, and fielded pre-production versions of a versatile acoustics-based counter-sniper system. This system was developed by BBN for the DARPA Tactical Technology Office to provide a low cost and accurate sniper detection and localization system. The system uses observations of the shock wave from supersonic bullets to estimate the bullet trajectory, Mach number, and caliber. If muzzle blast observations are also available from unsilenced weapons, the exact sniper location along the trajectory is also estimated. A newly developed and very accurate model of the bullet ballistics and acoustic radiation is used which includes bullet deceleration. This allows the use of very flexible acoustic sensor types and placements, since the system can model the bullet's flight, and hence the acoustic observations, over a wide area very accurately. System sensor configurations can be as simple as two small four element tetrahedral microphone arrays on either side of the area to be protected, or six omnidirectional microphones spread over the area to be monitored. Increased performance can be obtained by expanding the sensor field in size or density, and the system software is easily reconfigured to accommodate this at deployment time. Sensor nodes can be added using wireless network telemetry or hardwired cables to the command node processing and display computer. The system has been field tested in three government sponsored tests in both rural and simulated urban environments at the Camp Pendleton MOUT facility. Performance was characterized during these tests for various shot geometries and bullet speeds and calibers.

An acoustic surveillance system tailored to the detection and location of sniper fire was designed and a prototype built and tested. The SENTINEL system by Science Applications International Corporation exploits 100 kHz 16- bit digitization of signals from 16 condenser microphones in two volumetric arrays to make robust determinations of bearing, range, bullet trajectory, weapon caliber, and muzzle velocity. Signal processing is accomplished on VME hardware with C40 DSPs. Solutions are displayed within three seconds of a detected event on a ruggedized full-daylight- readable color laptop console. Typical accuracies are 1 degree to 2 degrees in azimuth and 2% to 10% in range, depending on range and environmental conditions. The large bandwidth and dynamic range, and exploitation of shock waveform period and amplitude estimates, give the system good capability even in difficult geometries and highly reverberant environments. In-depth study of the phenomenology of the ballistic shock wave was undertaken during the design phase. Results of this study are summarized.

The battlefield optical surveillance system (BOSS) was developed for DARPA by the U.S. Air Force's Phillips Laboratory. BOSS is a HMMWV mounted laser surveillance and deterrence system. It is intended to be used to detect and to deter potentially hostile individuals, snipers and groups of agitators. The BOSS integrates the following: (1) a thermal camera (8-12 micrometer FLIR), that detects and cues to possible targets, (2) a 45 watt, 808 nm (near IR), air- cooled laser which provides covert illumination and designation for a day/night camera to acquire said target and attain a high-resolution image using night vision equipment, and (3) a 1 watt, 532 nm (green) laser that overtly illuminates and designates the target. It also has significant deterring effects both physiological and psychological on individuals and crowds. BOSS offers the potential capability to detect snipers before the first shot is fired. Detection of optical augmentations and the thermal characteristics of a sniper allows for this early detection. The integration of BOSS with acoustic sniper detection systems are being explored.

During October 1995 - June 1996, the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center RDT&E Division (NRaD), under sponsorship from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), conducted an intensive series of multi-spectral signature analyses of typical sniper weapons. Multi-spectral signatures of the muzzle flashes from rifles and pistols and some imagery of the bullets in flight were collected. Multi- spectral signatures of the muzzle flash were collected in the infrared (2.5 - 14.5 microns), visible -- near-IR (400 - 1200 nanometers), and the ultra-violet (185 - 400 nanometers) wavelength regions. These measurements consisted of high spectral resolution (0.0159 micron) measurements of the spectral radiance of the muzzle flash. A time history plot of the muzzle flash as it evolves just forward of the end of the muzzle is provided. These measurements were performed with a CI Systems Model SR5000 IR/Visible spectroradiometer and an Ocean Optics Model PC1000 UV spectroradiometer. Muzzle flash infrared imagery is provided to show the effect that specific muzzle breaks have on the resulting muzzle flash. The following set of sniper weapons were included in this test: AK-47, SKS, M16A2, M-14, FN-FAL, SMLE IIa, 03 Springfield, SVD Dragunov, 50 caliber McMillan, and a 45 caliber ACP pistol. The results of this signature analysis show that important measurable electro-optical differences do exist between all these weapons in terms of spectral radiance of the flash, spectral content of the gun powders, and spectral shapes/geometries of the muzzle flashes. These differences were sufficient such that, after a more complete data base is collected, it will be possible to develop a passive electro-optical weapon and ammunition identifier.

During October 1995 through May 1996, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency sponsored the development of prototype systems that exploit acoustic muzzle blast and ballistic shock wave signatures to accurately predict the location of gunfire events and associated shooter locations using either single or multiple volumetric arrays. The output of these acoustic systems is an estimate of the shooter location and a classification estimate of the caliber of the shooter's weapon. A portable display and control unit provides both graphical and alphanumeric shooter location related information integrated on a two- dimensional digital map of the defended area. The final Phase I Acoustic Systems Demonstration field tests were completed in May. These these tests were held at USMC Base Camp Pendleton Military Operations Urban Training (MOUT) facility. These tests were structured to provide challenging gunfire related scenarios with significant reverberation and multi-path conditions. Special shot geometries and false alarms were included in these tests to probe potential system vulnerabilities and to determine the performance and robustness of the systems. Five prototypes developed by U.S. companies and one Israeli developed prototype were tested. This analysis quantifies the spatial resolution estimation capability (azimuth, elevation and range) of these prototypes and describes their ability to accurately classify the type of bullet fired in a challenging urban- like setting.

We present a summary of the top level design of and recent imagery and analysis made with components of the TTC fast infrared sniper tracker (FIRST) system. The FIRST instrument will utilize a 7 cm aperture optical system, a 3 - 5 micron imaging camera, and a pulsed, eye-safe laser radar in order to detect, track, and range upon high angular velocity targets, especially bullets. The optical system is based on an ultra low inertia, high acceleration gimbal which enables large area step and star bullet detection at high coverage rates. Three dimensional track files generated by the FIRST system will be used to accurately back-project to the bullet's origin.

Technologies for sniper localization have received increased attention in recent months as American forces have been deployed to various trouble spots around the world. Among the technologies considered for this task acoustics is a natural choice for various reasons. The acoustic signatures of gunshots are loud and distinctive, making them easy to detect even in high noise background environments. Acoustics provides a passive sensing technology with excellent range and non line of sight capabilities. Last but not least, an acoustic sniper location system can be built at a low cost with off the shelf components. Despite its many advantages, the performance of acoustic sensors can degrade under adverse propagation conditions. Localization accuracy, although good, is usually not accurate enough to pinpoint a sniper's location in some scenarios (for example which widow in a building or behind which tree in a grove). For these more demanding missions, the acoustic sensor can be used in conjunction with an infra red imaging system that detects the muzzle blast of the gun. The acoustic system can be used to cue the pointing system of the IR camera in the direction of the shot's source.

Since July of 1995, Lockheed Martin IR Imaging Systems of Lexington, Massachusetts has been developing an integrated sniper location system for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and for the Department of the Navy's Naval Command Control & Ocean Surveillance Center, RDTE Division in San Diego, California. This system integrates two technologies to provide an affordable and highly effective sniper detection and location capability. The integrated sniper location system is being developed for use by the military and by law enforcement agencies. It will be man portable and can be used by individuals, at fixed ground sites, on ground vehicles, and on low flying aircraft. The integrated sniper location system combines an acoustic warning system with an uncooled infrared warning system. The acoustic warner is being developed by SenTech, Inc. of Lexington, Massachusetts. This acoustic warner provides sniper detection and coarse location information based upon the muzzle blast of the sniper's weapon and/or upon the shock wave produced by the sniper's bullet, if the bullet is supersonic. The uncooled infrared warning system provides sniper detection and fine location information based upon the weapons's muzzle flash. Combining the two technologies improves detection probability and reduces false alarm rate. This paper describes the integrated sniper location system, focusing on the uncooled infrared sensor and its associated signal processing. In addition, preliminary results from Phase I testing of the system are presented. Finally, the paper addresses the plans for implementing Phases II and III, during which the system will be optimized in terms of detection and location performance, size, weight, power, and cost.