By Scott R. Gourley

A boomerang is an angular throwing club designed to curve in flight and return to a point near the thrower. But for warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, that point of return is quite a bit more precise.

“Boomerang is a commercial off-the-shelf shooter detection system (for fixed and mobile applications) which instantly reports the location of enemy shooters,” explains Mark Sherman, vice president and general manager of BBN Technologies.

“Small-arms fire is the second leading cause of U.S. military casualties in Iraq,” Sherman continued. “Soldiers are operating in noisy, urban environments; they often don’t hear the shots being fired [at them], or they find it difficult to determine shooter locations because of echoes and background noises. And this is the problem that Boomerang is solving. Not only is it accurate, it also gives the soldiers those few critical seconds, the time to react to protect themselves or take action.”

The Boomerang system consists of two components: a mast-mounted array of acoustic sensors and a small electronics box (typically located inside a vehicle or inside an observation post).

The acoustic sensor array detects the hostile shot and, in less than one second, soldiers hear an audible announcement of azimuth and range to the shooter, in addition to a visual display, which also provides visual azimuth, range and elevation information, while recording this information internally. The system design also “filters out” friendly (outgoing) fire.

According to Sherman, there was nothing available to perform this critical tactical function before Boomerang, with BBN Technologies first demonstrating the ability to acoustically detect hostile small-arms fire for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the mid-1990s. Although there were no tactical imperatives driving a formal program at that time, government interest quickly resurfaced with ground-force deployments to the tactical environments of Afghanistan and Iraq, with a resulting series of rapid reaction initiatives conducted by DARPA.

Under one of those rapid reaction initiatives conducted at the end of 2003, BBN took its earlier lab demonstration project and designed, developed, produced and delivered 50 hardware systems in just 66 days. These Boomerang I systems were quickly sent to Kuwait and installed on vehicles in February 2004.

“They proved that the technology worked on a moving platform,” Sherman said. “That science was demonstrated. In just over 60 days, however, there really wasn’t enough time to make a system sound enough to survive the military operational environment.”

Based on problems identified with the first generation systems, DARPA funded a series of system improvements and then partnered with the rapid equipping force to accomplish a second fielding of approximately 125 Boomerang II systems in late 2004 and early 2005.

“About half of those systems went to the Marine Corps and half went to the Army,” Sherman said. “They were all on Humvees. One of the first things that the marines did was to tear them off the Humvees and set them up in fixed locations, because they were guarding and protecting gated areas and they were in observation posts. Those were places where they were taking fire.”

Noting that the challenge is to get the technology working on a moving vehicle and that Boomerang has met that challenge at speeds in excess of 60 mph, Sherman said, “It’s much easier to do it when you’re not in a moving vehicle.”

He added that some of the feedback received from Iraq revealed that “some of the insurgents over there have referred to Boomerang as ‘the death octopus,’ because if you shoot at something that has this on it, it shoots back.”

BBN spent much of 2005 and early 2006 redesigning the system, focusing on ease of installation, ease of operation and ease of maintenance. Appropriate Military Standards were also applied to help make the design more rugged.

As one example of the redesign success, Sherman noted that Boomerang III can now be installed on a vehicle in less than one hour.

“We also added a whole bunch of functionality to the system,” he said. “There probably have been close to 10,000 test rounds fired at the system, and that has enabled us to improve our algorithms while making the system even more robust.”

Choosing his words carefully, Sherman added that the design also addresses the challenges of “the electronic environment over there” to provide warfighters with reliable capabilities at all times.

The first of the new Boomerang III devices was fielded at the beginning of calendar year 2007, with almost 1,000 of the newest models fielded by mid-summer.

Now assessed at a Technical Readiness Level 9 and Maturity Readiness Level 10, Boomerang has leapfrogged the normal process of establishing a program of record.

Rather, Sherman noted, “It has been the rapid equipping force that has been leading this fielding. They have had assistance and arrangements for logistics support by AMC [Army Materiel Command] and CECOM [Communications and Electronics Command]. So there is a sustainment capability in theater. And right now we are moving towards a program of record.”

In addition to its ongoing deliveries, Sherman said that BBN is “building up our inventory because we want to be able to fulfill additional orders this year. It’s a difficult state to be in, but we’re using operational need statements, unit funding and any kind of bridge funding that there is.”

As of this writing, Boomerang III systems have been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are operational on Humvees and Strykers, as well as at fixed installations. There is also a new man-transportable configuration in use at checkpoints and by explosive ordnance disposal teams.

Looking toward the future, Boomerang system developers have designed the system to easily integrate with situational awareness platforms, including Land Warrior and blue force tracking. Other discussions have addressed possible integration with remote weapon stations to provide slew-to-cue capabilities that would bring the weapon station onto the hostile shooter in less than one second. Other integration explorations include naval surface craft, a man-wearable design and even a helicopter-mounted version.

“The military faces asymmetrical threats,” Sherman said. “And, as we have recently seen, lengthy procurement cycles can be shortened. Boomerang is one example of how the Army is partnering with the U.S. industrial base to rapidly provide soldiers with the latest in lifesaving technology and assistance.”

“We get a steady stream of requests from Iraq every day to ‘send more systems because this system is terrific,’” he concluded. “And our challenge now is to keep the momentum going and to get these into the field where they can make a difference and save lives today.”