Engineers at Vanderbilt University's Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) have developed a wireless neural network embedded within soldier helmets that can display the location of enemy snipers in three dimensions and identify the caliber and type of weapon being shot. Cellular-news.com says that combat helmets become "smart nodes" in the system that triangulates and evaluates bullet sound waves.
The acoustic signals from the bullet allows the system to weed out other loud noises and track them back to their source.
The system is accurate to within one meter from a distance of 300 meters and can pick out an individual sniper shot even if a machine gun is also firing.
The ISIS system uses wireless nodes or smart notes that form self-organizing wireless networks. These are part of the Pentagon's "smart-dust" concept of drastically reducing the size and cost of sensor networks for military applications. Current commercial shooter location systems are extremely expensive, with prices ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 per unit. By contrast, an entire node for the ISIS system weighs only slightly more than the four AA batteries that power it and costs about $1,000 to construct using currently available commercial hardware.