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Boomerang System
(click for lg. cutaway)

Sniper attacks are an ongoing problem/ opportunity in any urban conflict, which is tailor made for the practice. The bad news is that most future conflicts and even peacekeeping operations can be expected to spend a lot of time in urban settings.

Western armies tend to field much better snipers than their enemies do, and the results show. Nevertheless, better support for those snipers, and for non-specialist troops under fire, offers those armies a critical new asset that gives them an edge. The question is, how to accomplish that in a way that provides immediate results, and is reliable?

A number of solutions have been developed over the past few years, some of which are also working to reduce crime in American neighborhoods – another urban setting that sometimes features opponents with AK-47s. On the front lines abroad, the most widely deployed system comes from BBN Solutions LLC in Cambridge, MA, who helped invent the Internet. Enter a system called Boomerang…

How Boomerang Works

The Boomerang units attach to a vehicle and use seven small microphones, arranged like the spine of a sea urchin, to detect both the muzzle blast and the shock wave from a speeding bullet. Once a sniper’s bullet is detected, Boomerang’s display panel, which is located inside the vehicle, alerts soldiers through an LED 12-hour clock image display panel and speaker mounted inside the vehicle that a bullet has been fired, and gives its direction and elevation. The system resets for subsequent shot detection.

Incoming fire detection and shooter position are determined and reported in less than 2 seconds, and the system is accurate for shots taken up to 1/4 mile away – a range that covers almost all urban combat situations. False shot detections are less that 1 per 1,000 hours of system operation at vehicle speeds under 50 miles per hour. Missed shots are less than 1 per 500 shots at vehicle speeds under 50 miles per hour. The system is especially calibrated to detect the 7.62×39 mm round, which is the round fired by the AK-47 and similar small arms common to Iraq and Afghanistan; nevertheless, the system has been tested and proven to perform successfully with 5.56 NATO and .50 caliber machine gun rounds.

In 2005 Boomerang won both the DARPA “Significant Technical Achievement Award” and the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX) Technology Influencer of the Year Award. As of September 2005, Boomerang was being tested on 50 HMMWVs deployed to Iraq. Fielding has accelerated since then.

Contracts & Key Events

Unless the entry says otherwise, the contracts are issued to BBN Technologies Corp. in Cambridge, MA.

June 16/08: A $73.8 million firm fixed price contract for 8,131 Boomerang Systems, spares and training services. Work will be performed in Cambridge, MA, with an estimated completion date of June 10/09. One bid was solicited with one bid received by the US CECOM Acquisition Center in Fort Monmouth, NJ (W15P7T-08-C-S202).

Dec 18/07: BBN announces that it has been awarded $3.6 million in funding by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an acoustic small arms detection system for helicopters.

Oct 1/07: BBN Technologies will develop and demonstrate a prototype, lightweight, wearable shooter detection system with funding from the US Army’s Natick Research, Development and Engineering Center. The new system will leverage Boomerang technologies. BBN release.

Jan 25/07: A $9.5 million firm-fixed-price contract for “acoustic shot detection and decoy systems.” Apparently, their initial deployment to Iraq went well.

Work will be performed in Cambridge, MA and is expected to be complete by May 20/07. There were 3 bids solicited on Jan. 11, 2007, and 3 bids were received by the U.S. Army Contracting Agency at White Sand Missile Range, NM (W9124Q-07-C-0532).

Aug 30/05: A $1.4 million increment as part of a $6.3 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to Design, Fabricate Prototypes, Test and Document and Support Upgrades to the Counter Shooter System (aka. Boomerang). Work will be performed in Cambridge, MA (91.6%) and Danbury, CT (8.4%), and is expected to be complete by Dec. 30, 2005. This was a sole source contract initiated on Nov. 17, 2003. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, VA issued the contract (HR0011-04-C-0035).

• See also DID’s coverage of anti-sniper systems as a trend, complete with other examples: “Anti-Sniper Systems Finding Their Range.”

• BBN Technologies – Products: Boomerang. this BBN White Paper re: Boomerang [PDF format].

• YouTube Video from a Discovery Chanel report

• USA Today (March 27/05) – Electronic ears on alert for enemy gunshots