Uho

Uho ('ear' in Russian) is an Android app and accompanying web service aimed at pinpointing explosions and heavy gunfire. By collecting audio signatures from several devices it triangulates exact position and time of these events. It will allow to see all artillery strikes and impacts on the map and accurately attribute each impact to the shooter.

Its deployment will have considerable implications for conflict monitoring. It will be one more tool, one more dataset to correlate with reports on the ground and identify what’s going on. It will not by itself tell the affiliation of the shooter or count casualties, instead it will allow investigators to merge other sources of information into the bigger picture. It will also provide a statistical view of the war: where and when does it flare, how it calms down.

This prototype android app is a background service that continuously listens to the microphone for explosions. After detecting such an event it briefly switches on GPS to get the location, then sends the location and timestamp to the server when the Internet is available. Internet connection is not required when the explosion is detected, its data can be uploaded later.

The app can also record five-second sound samples of the suspected detections and upload them to the server when WiFi is available. The app stores no more than 20 samples to conserve storage space, and the samples are deleted from the device as soon as they are uploaded to the cloud.

Forum: http://uhoproject.mytalk.io/