Patent ID: 8861311

Claim:
A method for estimating location information associated with a supersonic projectile propelled from a source, the method comprising: recording sound at a first location using a single microphone during travel of the supersonic projectile to produce an acoustic recording; and estimating a miss distance (b) between the first location and a trajectory of the supersonic projectile based on a length of a shockwave generated by the supersonic projectile (shockwave length), wherein the estimating comprises identifying the shockwave length based on the acoustic recording and determining the miss distance based on the shockwave length and a plurality of projectile characteristics, and wherein the determining of the miss distance comprises performing one of: selecting the miss distance based on a table of predefined miss distance values as a function of a period of the shockwave based on the acoustic recording, or evaluating: b = l ⁡ ( Tc dM ⁡ ( 1.82 ) ) 4 ⁢ ( M 2 - 1 ) 3 / 2 where l is the projectile length, d is the projectile diameter, T is the shockwave length, c is the speed of sound, and M is the Mach number associated with the projectile.