2 ms·

Genuine question though, can one get accurate/precise triangulation from microphones? This isn't comparable to Richter scales distributed across the land to mea

• mlyle 4y ago
  In principle you can. The biggest problem are reflections and multipath (which are also problems for locating earthquakes). Also, classifying whether a noise came from a gun, when heard from far away in an urban environment with lots of other noises around, is hard. Simplest method is trilateration. By knowing the travel time from multiple places, you can figure out the source point.
• twawaaay 4y ago
  Sure we can. And it is surprisingly easy. Sound waves travel 300m every second. If you can get devices synchronised to 1ms (which isn't very difficult given very easy access to GPS which is orders of magnitude more accurate), you can triangulate to at least within 1m. There is some complication like the sound travels at different speed depending on pressure of the gas. The sound might have also arrived to the microphone on not the shortest path. The shortest might have been obstructed, for example, and what you got is a reflection off of a distant object or even sound that was "bent" by layers of air with different properties. But if you have ever heard a gun shot, most of the time you got first the sound wave that reached you directly and then possibly some reflections. By analysing those reflections and assuming that if multiple gunshots were made, they were made at roughly the same spot, it is possible to discern whether you heard one gunshot with reflections or multiple series resulting from multiple shots.