Abstract
Vibration monitoring and analysis techniques have significant potential to improve security and threat detection in the built environment. The cornerstone of the Virginia Tech Smart Infrastructure Laboratory (VTSIL) is the highly instrumented Goodwin Hall on the VT campus. This 5-story classroom and laboratory building is instrumented with over 200 accelerometers hard-wired throughout its 160,000 square feet, providing a platform for research and education in structural health monitoring, dynamic model validation, and occupancy studies, among other smart building applications. One of the major research goals for VTSIL is to utilize vibration data to develop advanced security strategies, including threat detection, identification, and localization. Toward realizing this goal, a mobile cement and I-beam platform was built and instrumented with accelerometers. This test-bed recorded vibration signatures during the event of a person discharging a firearm while standing atop the platform. This paper includes initial results that demonstrate there are detectable differences in sensor measurements between a handgun, rifle, and shotgun. Initial analysis of this vibration data using the singular value decomposition demonstrates that one can deduce the type of firearm discharged regardless of differences in the shooter (male, female, weight, etc.), thus justifying the pursuit of advanced vibration-based threat detection and identification systems.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the VT Police for the use of their shooting range facility for performing the tests presented here, and also for their support of this project and ongoing research for improving threat detection and identification. The authors wish to acknowledge the support and the close collaborative efforts provided by our sponsors, VTI Instruments, PCB Piezotronics, Inc.; Dytran Instruments, Inc.; Oregano Systems; and Measurement Specialties, Inc. The authors are particularly appreciative for support provided by the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech through Dean Richard Benson and Associate Dean Ed Nelson as well as VT Capital Project Manager, Todd Shelton, and VT University Building Official, William Hinson. The authors would also like to acknowledge Gilbane, Inc. and in particular, David Childress and Eric Hotek. We want to give a special thanks to the Student Engineering Council (SEC) at Virginia Tech and their financial commitment to the Goodwin Hall instrumentation work. The specific project work presented here was conducted through the support of the Virginia Tech Smart Infrastructure Laboratory and its members.
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© 2016 The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc.
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Kasarda, M. et al. (2016). Detection and Identification of Firearms Upon Discharge Using Floor-Based Accelerometers. In: Di Miao, D., Tarazaga, P., Castellini, P. (eds) Special Topics in Structural Dynamics, Volume 6. Conference Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Mechanics Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29910-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29910-5_5
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