NavtechGPS played a small but critical role in the development of the Boomerang. The Boomerang is a state-of the-art shooter detection system developed by Raytheon BBN Technologies to precisely locate incoming small arms fire, primarily from snipers. Often, troops in noisy Humvees (HMMWV) in combat arenas like Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t know they were being shot at until someone was hit.
The Boomerang uses an acoustic detection system that employs an array of microphones mounted to a vehicle to detect incoming gunfire. NavtechGPS developed a solution to determine the heading of the vehicle in order to properly detect the orientation of the microphone array. After careful consideration, NavtechGPS chose a precision GPS heading system and robust patch antennas. We were further challenged to find a way to prevent possible jamming and interference to the GPS receiver. Through the addition of proper filtering, we were able to mitigate these issues to a degree even greater than requested by the customer.
