Military Helicopters May Get Gunshot Location System

Military helicopters have sophisticated electronic countermeasures to detect and defend against surface-to-air missiles, by jamming or fooling the seekers that guide the missiles to target. Now the Pentagon’s far-out research arm wants to take things a step further, by protecting against unguided — but equally dangerous — small arms fire.

In testimony yesterday, Regina Dugan, the new head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, described a new acoustic sensor the agency was developing to alert aircrews to ground fire.

The system — called HALTT, for Helicopter Alert and Threat Termination — is a hostile-fire indicator that would give the pilot a warning of attack, and pinpoint its origin. It would work by detecting the distinct acoustic signature (or “crack”) of a bullet as it passes through the air. It would then indicate the shooter’s position. HALTT, Dugan said, “would make it very dangerous to shoot at U.S. forces — because the first shot may very well be the adversary’s last.”

Dugan also gave an interesting statistic: Incoming small arms fire, she said, accounted for 85 percent of hostile engagements against helos. A prototype of the system has been installed on an Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, and Dugan said the military was planning to deploy several systems to Afghanistan for real-world evaluation.

www.blacklistednews.com...

www.wired.com...-23398

Wow - that system really will lift helicopters capabilities to fight guerilla wars. I think system is welcomed, but how much more systems pilots can handle... It would be interesting to know is this system separae or part of general avionics, nd if it appears on huds.

So if it detects the "crack" of the bullet then silencers are no good for the attackers?
That sounds like pretty good tech.

I believe this has been in the making for quite some time now.

The sophisticated satellites in our atmosphere already pick up conversations on the ground in various locations and have "ears". So, just imagine the technology now, because that was 15 years ago...

They already intercept phone conversations via satellites.
Now they can tell where you shoot from with helicopters.

I can guarantee this can be used domestically, also.
Although for wars, this would be innovative.

Originally posted by havok
I can guarantee this can be used domestically, also.

I could swear I saw a news story about high crime areas with new acoustic gunshot detectors mounted like cameras. It was a few years ago, but I think it had DF capability too. That's really impressive for the tech to work on an airborne helicopter. Are Apaches very loud ? I remember there was going to be a stealth comanche with silenced propulsion, but it got cancelled.

The gunshot location systems "I have direct experience with them" are not foolproof systems. They often are very very wrong when giving locations. Unless they have greatly improved the system since I last knew, but on top of that how can it even work well on a helo? Rotors make so much noise.