First Acoustic RAM-SCORE Localisation System Fielded in ’t Harde, the Netherlands

On the 4th of April 2012, Microflown AVISA demonstrated the first RAM-SCORE system to the Royal Netherlands Army for further testing after a successful acceptance test at the artillery shooting range (ASK) in 't Harde.

Fully Automatic Acoustic Localisation Systems

RAM-SCORE is a fully automatic acoustic localisation system, which localises points of impact (POI) as well as points of origin (POO) of artillery shells, mortars and bombs compared to  traditional acoustic localisation systems. This easy deployable system is capable of replacing labour intensive monitoring. The localisation is achieved using a decentralised Acoustic Vector Sensor (AVS) network in the field, which processes the acoustic data right at the ground sensor location, before the relevant information is transmitted. The centrally received individual sensor reports are further processed by the main station control software which presents the relevant detections on a digital map based user interface in real time.

Under the patronage of the Royal Netherlands Army, the RAM-SCORE system successfully localised mortar and artillery shells which were detonated on the 40km2 training range. The project requirement of 50m CEP50 was easily met with 8.5m CEP50 proven throughout the trials. (Circular error probable (CEP) is an intuitive measure in military standards. It is defined as the radius of a circle, centered about the mean, whose boundary is expected to include 50% of the population within it.) The best localisation throughout the demonstration days was 1.5m from the actual location which was measured in by the Dutch Army. The spacing between each ground sensor was about 1 kilometer from each other.

Further improvements in accuracies are feasible by either rearranging /optimizing the layout of the AVS or simply using more AVSs.

Alongside the broad presence of the Royal Netherlands Army representatives of the German Army and selected international industry were present at the first live demonstration to see the novel AVS technology fielded, which further offers great integration potential for existing and future military technology. RAM-SCORE is now commercially available and further information can be found online at: www.microflown-avisa.com