Patent ID: 7532542

Claim:
An acoustic sensor for use in a gunshot location system comprising: a microphone for receiving acoustic information; a time clock for providing absolute time values associated with the acoustic information; a processor in electrical communication with said microphone to process said acoustic information to detect an acoustic event and in communication with said time clock to determine a time of arrival for said acoustic event, said processor having a sleep instruction wherein upon execution of said sleep instruction said processor enters a sleep state wherein said processor consumes substantially less electrical current than when said processor is not in said state; and a network interface in communication with said processor to transmit said time of arrival over a communication network, wherein said sleep state includes reducing a processor clock rate; wherein, upon occurence of an acoustic event above a minimum lower threshold of a window specified by a window setting component, said processor increases the clock rate, and for acoustic events determined to be possible gunshots as a function of being above the minimum lower threshold: associates an absolute time value with the acoustic event, wherein the absolute time value is a time as to when the acoustic event was actually detected at the sensor, and processes the absolute time and sensor position data for transmission over the network via the network interface.