Measured directionality of firearm muzzle blast sounds for audio forensic analysis

Maher R. Measured directionality of firearm muzzle blast sounds for audio forensic analysis. In: Express Paper. Audio Engineering Society; 2025. Paper 380. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23054

@inproceedings{Maher2025_23054,
  author = {Maher, Robert},
  title = {{Measured directionality of firearm muzzle blast sounds for audio forensic analysis}},
  note = {Paper 380},
  year = {2025},
  month = oct,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23054}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Measured directionality of firearm muzzle blast sounds for audio forensic analysis
AU  - Maher, Robert
M1  - Paper 380
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/10/14
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23054
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - When triggered, conventional firearms produce a loud impulsive report known as the muzzle blast. In this paper we present the measured directional sound characteristics of muzzle blast sounds from several common firearms, and discuss the implications for audio forensic analysis. While the muzzle blast sound is frequently assumed to be omnidirectional, quasi-anechoic measurements show that the sound pressure level varies by more than 20 dB between the sound level in the direction the barrel is pointing and the sound level off to the side or behind the gun. The directionality of the muzzle blast may provide a useful clue in some audio forensic cases, while also introducing a complicating factor for gunshot detection and classification when the orientation of the firearm with respect to the microphone is often unknown. As described in this paper, research involving machine learning for firearms detection and classification requires data sets for training that truly represent the directional variability of real gunshot sounds.
ER  -