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Weapons and Explosives Information Tracking and Alerting System: A Real-

Time Approach

Article in IJARCCE · April 2015

DOI: 10.17148/IJARCCE.2015.45132

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 ISSN (Online) 2278-1021
ISSN (Print) 2319-5940

International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering

Vol. 4, Issue 5, May 2015

Weapons and Explosives Information Tracking

and Alerting System: A Real-Time Approach
Moses O. Onyesolu1, Macdonald N. Onyeizu2, Celestine. O. Uwa3, Charles. O. Ugwunna4
Senior Lecturer, Computer Science Department, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria 1
P. G. Student, Computer Science Department, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria 2,3,4
Abstract: One of the teething concerns of government is the security of the citizens of the country. It is no news to say
that individuals who do not have licenses gain access to ammunition and weapons. Suffice to say that inadequacy in the
management of weapons especially those kept in the stockpiles has been identified as a major contributing factor. Poor
stockpile management of weapons results in the deterioration of ammunition leading to an unsafe environment for
citizenries. Conversely, the safe, efficient, and effective management of national stockpiles of conventional ammunition
and explosives would enhance military and police capabilities and also reduce threat and fear of unwanted explosions.
The main idea of this work is to study the national weapon and ammunition stockpiles and develop an effective system
with real-time features to enable countries have effective mechanism to keep track of their weapons, ensuring safe
storage and reduce risks of illegal theft of weapons and identifying losses quickly. This work will serve as an effective
element for counter-proliferation and ensuring the safety of explosives. The real-time feature of the system will help in
identifying weapons and explosives that require maintenance. However, pre-information on weapons and ammunition
expiry date and shelf-life will be notified by the system. Finally, legal weapons recovered from crime scene would be
run an instant check to know the personnel officially assigned to it/them.

Keywords: Ammunitions, Armoury, Explosives, Personnel, Real-time, Shelf-life.

I. INTRODUCTION
Security challenges in the world have posed serious threats injured and some properties damaged. Meanwhile, two
to smooth governance and economic development of similar incidences were recorded in North Korea in
affected nations. At one point or another, some countries February 2004 and April 2004; where total of one
are held at ransom following one form of security thousand and fifty four (1054) innocent lives were lost,
challenge or the other. The dangerous dimension is that the many injured and so many properties lost.
security challenge has become a great source of worry as
The above mentioned challenges and problems have been
security experts affirm that what is on ground has shifted
easier and possible because there have been insufficient
to the realm of terrorism and kidnapping, global
tracking system for legally acquired weapons and
phenomena where no one is safe (Bosun, 2012). This has
ammunitions and real-time feature to detect or identify
amounted to destruction of property, sending innocents
weapons’ shelf-life, maintenance period as well as expiry
citizens to their early grave and all that.
date. Hence, the need to develop a system to tackle the
above problems becomes paramount. Therefore, this work
However, some countries face internal security challenges is aimed at curbing the excesses of our security agents by
as security agents illegally lease guns or ammunitions to tracking weapons officially assigned to them and
robbers, touts and terrorists to perpetuate crime. (Bisola, preventing self detonation of explosives devices as a result
2012) pointed out that there have been good number of of inadequate maitenance. The objectives of this work are:
criminals arrested at one time or the other with different a) To identify security personnel in possession of
security uniforms and weapons that were acquired by
weapons at any given time.
security agencies and officially assigned to security
personnel. Another serious problem facing security agency b) To identify who was assigned any weapon recovered
is improper storage of ammunition and explosives. A from crime scene.
survey by Wilkinson (2005) found out that between 1997 c) To identify the shelf life, maintenance and/or expiry
and 2005, there were ninety three (93) known or suspected periods for explosive weapons.
explosive events at ammunition storage areas which led to d) To identify a range of time in months to the expiration
destruction of property, death of citizens and injury to date, shelf life and maintenance date which will serve
many. From the survey, Nigeria led in the casualty list
as early warning guide or information to avoid
while North Korea follows. In January 27, 2002, over one
thousand five hundred (1,500+) innocent lives were lost, catastrophe (self-detonation).
many sustained injuries and properties damaged as a result
of expired explosives triggered off from the Army II. SOME METHODS OF TRACKING WEAPONS
Armoury at Ikeja Cantonment, Nigeria. In a similar a. Tracking Weapons using Forensics: In tracking
incident that happened in Kaduna, Nigeria on February 23, of ammunitions, ballistic finger printing can equally be
2005, about five (5) innocent lives were lost with many employed. According to Kopel (2008), ballistic finger
Copyright to IJARCCE DOI 10.17148/IJARCCE.2015.45132 619
 ISSN (Online) 2278-1021
ISSN (Print) 2319-5940

International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering

Vol. 4, Issue 5, May 2015

printing refers to a set of forensic techniques that rely on number of boxes and the manufacturers of specific
marks that firearms leave on bullets to match a bullet to weapons that are being given to a particular unit.
the gun it was fired with. In addition to recording the Individual records are not being kept especially on
markings from guns used in crimes, the system is designed ammunitions dissemination and use.
to record markings from the test firing of every new gun. If
the database does eventually contain the majority of Since the Defense Headquarters allocates weapons of a
firearms manufactured, it would be possible for the police particular type and make to a given unit at any point in
to start the trace process with nothing more than a bullet or time, it makes it easy for them to identify any weapon
a casing left at a crime scene. He stated further that it is a intercepted anywhere as having come from a particular
subset of forensic ballistics (the application of ballistics to area.
legal questions) and internal ballistics (the study of events
between the firing of a gun and the bullet leaving the But in a situation where as a result of crises in a particular
barrel). area, security agencies are brought in from other areas to
assist in calming down the situation and since the
b. Ballistic Fingerprinting Techniques and Aids: incoming contingent must come with their weapons, one
Karen (2008) identified ballistic fingerprinting techniques expects non-uniform weapons to be seen and used in that
as based on the principle that all firearms have inevitable area. Irrespective of this mixture of weapons, the
variations due to marks left by the machining process, authorities have comprehensive record of the types and
leaving shallow impressions in the metal which are rarely makes of weapons given to each unit in the country.
completely polished out. Also, normal wear and tear from Therefore, any weapon used in such area can be traced
use can cause each firearm to acquire distinct back to where it is coming from (George, 2005). These
characteristics over time. tracking and tracing system of weapons is done manually
and it is prone to errors.
c. Missile Guidance: Missile guidance refers to a
variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb IV. STORAGE OF WEAPONS
to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a Weapons are stored in the Armoury, (a place where
critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems weapons and military equipment are kept). Weapons may
improve missile accuracy by improving its "Single Shot deteriote or become damaged unless it is correctly stored,
handled, and transported. As a result, it may fail to
Kill Probability" (SSKP), which is part of combat
function as designed and become dangerous in storage,
survivability calculations associated with the salvo combat handling, transit and use. Armories are built underground
model. These guidance technologies can generally be and always air-conditioned. The air-conditioning system is
divided up into a number of categories, with the broadest put in place to control the temperature of the Armoury.
categories being "active," "passive" and "preset" guidance. The authorities always make sure that there is constant
Missiles and guided bombs generally use similar types of power supply to run the air-conditioners and that the air
conditioners are in good working condition. The
guidance system, the difference between the two being that
environmental requirements (temperature, humidity, and
missiles are powered by an onboard engine, whereas vibration) of weapons vary, and are dependent on their
guided bombs rely on the speed and height of the launch intended storage conditions (including shelf life),
aircraft for propulsion [6]. transportation, handling, and use. The performance of
explosives will be unpredictable and their safety will be
III. PRESENT SYSTEM OF TRACKING WEAPONS reduced if the manufacturers’ environmental conditions are
The Defence Headquarters is the only sole authority not met while in long-term storage. Some substances used
charged with the responsibility of the acquisition and in weapons attract and hold moisture, which may result in
distribution of weapons of any type to the country’s armed the degradation of explosive performance. It may also
forces. These weapons could be imported into the country cause them to become dangerous to handle because of the
from other countries especially those countries in which potential for the formation of sensitive explosive crystals
the country has an arms treaty deal with. When these between the fuse and main body of the weapons. Rain,
weapons are brought into the country, they are taken to the dampness, and humidity can cause enormous damage to
National Armoury for storage. It is from the National weapons in a short time. This is very important for the
Armoury that distribution of weapons are effected to weapons to work properly and is therefore adequately
Divisions and other units under the Divisions according to catered for by the authorities.
demand. Each Division has a Central Armoury where
weapons coming from the Defence Headquarters are kept The weapons are normally arranged by type, model and
and from there units are identified and allocated to make; with the less frequently used and maintained ones
according to their need. always at the rear.

These weapons come in boxes and each box contains The following materials are restricted to be taken close to
certain number of firearms and ammunitions. The the armoury: matches, lighter, candles, fire-works, boots
authorities are only much interested in knowing the
Copyright to IJARCCE DOI 10.17148/IJARCCE.2015.45132 620
 ISSN (Online) 2278-1021
ISSN (Print) 2319-5940

International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering

Vol. 4, Issue 5, May 2015

having cracker underneath, smoking of cigarette, and log card equally carries the same butt number as the
generally anything that can ignite fire. weapon. The other information in the log card are the type,
make and model of weapon, personnel name, service
number, date, time of signing in and signing out the
V. MAINTENANCE OF WEAPONS weapon and a column for remarks by the gunnery officer.
Weapons that need to be maintained always have the However, the required entries to be made at the point of
accompanying maintenance period and procedure state by collection are the date, time, sign-out and remarks by the
the manufacturer. Every weapon that is regularly used is gunnery officer. Once this is done, the personnel goes
always checked and maintenance carried out on it on a away with the weapon. On returning the weapon, the
weekly basis. Those categories of weapons that are rarely personal signs in the appropriate columns and then gets
used are checked and maintained on a quarterly or yearly back his/her tally.
basis.
On the other hand, every ammunition has a serial number
Explosive devices by the terms of their manufacture are engraved on its right from the manufacturer. However, our
supposed to be taken back to the manufacturer on a regular security agencies pay no particular attention to such serial
interval of 6 to 12 months for renewal. This renewal, at numbers when issuing them out to personnel on duty or
times is ignored, generally, because of negligence of duty. special assignments. As was noted earlier, the ammunition
Maintenance is often ignored, with inevitable costly comes in boxes which contain packets of about 1000
consequences. There are many horror stories about rounds or more per packet. The gunnery officer gives each
otherwise excellent weapons that have no maintenance personnel on assignment a particular number of rounds
culture. Also, the shelf life of weapons (the length of time without keeping record of their serial numbers. Hence,
an item of weapon may be stored before its performance nobody can say with certainty who has been given a
degrades) is a very important element in maintenance that particular ammunition, although, they can only identify the
is often ignored. manufacturer since units get their allocation from a
particular manufacturer or vendor. Therefore, any
ammunition found in a crime scene cannot be traced to any
VI. WEAPONS ALLOCATION AND CONTROL STRATEGIES personnel since records are not being kept except the
Uwa (2015) opined that every country’s Armoury has an number of rounds given out.
overall boss called the armourer, who is responsible for the
safe keeping and general administration of weapons in the VII. PROBLEMS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM
Armoury. Next to the armourer is the gunnery officer who i) Ammunitions are allocated to personnel without
issues weapons to personnel/officers for whatever official regard to the serial numbers or code numbers and even
assignment they are engaged in and receives them back the type, model and manufacturer. Since such records
after such assignments. For instance, the Nigerian Army are not being kept, it is not possible to trace any bullet
and indeed other security agencies have their peculiar or shell casing found at a crime scene to the personnel
means of identifying and controlling weapons. In the who fired such ammunition.
Nigerian Army, every weapon has its unique identity ii) Firearms are allocated through the use of Butt
called a Butt number. This Butt number is of the from numbers which actually served for identification and
MPA/012, where MPA is the unit of the Army having that control. However, these numbers are handwritten on
particular weapon and 012 is the serial number of the the firearms and can easily be erased by any criminal
weapon and is always written on the body of the firearm who intends to use it and carry out a crime.
with any coloured paint. The serial number used here is iii) The use of log cards by gunnery officers to keep
specific to any given unit and has no relationship with the record of weapons is manual and is prone to errors
manufacturer’s serial number. and manipulations by corrupt personnel/officers.
iv) The lack of proper record keeping has made it
Every army personnel in any given unit has a particular possible for personnel to illegally fire allocated
weapon allocated to him/her as long as that personnel is ammunition and source for replacement from different
attached to that unit. That is to say that each personnel can quarters without the gunnery officers noticing it. At
identify his/her own weapon by using his/her assigned butt times, the sourced replacements are even of different
number. Once a personnel is posted out of any given unit, models and makes.
his/her new unit will give him/her a new butt number v) The lack of maintenance culture in our system has
specific to a particular weapon. In addition, every made it possible for the maintenance of weapons
personnel has a tally bearing the same butt number as on difficult to be carried out on time except when such
the weapon. The personnel will keep the tally with him/her weapons start malfunctioning. Proper records are not
until the weapon is needed. Whenever a personnel goes to usually kept on how and when to carry out such
the Armoury to sign a weapon, such personnel presents the maintenance activities.
tally to the gunnery officer who uses the presented tally to vi) Lack of proper maintenance and monitoring of the
identify such personnel’s weapon. Once the corresponding armoury. At times the air conditioners that control the
weapon is identified, the personnel will then sign the temperature of the armoury malfunction and is usually
appropriate columns in the accompanying log card. The
Copyright to IJARCCE DOI 10.17148/IJARCCE.2015.45132 621
 ISSN (Online) 2278-1021
ISSN (Print) 2319-5940

International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering

Vol. 4, Issue 5, May 2015

noticed late or even ignored thereby posing serious A. Administrator Module

threat to lives and property. This module could be called amourer module and it
vii) Certain types of explosive devices by the nature of enables the system administrator to configure and maintain
their function and terms of agreement during supply various variables in the system such as create users,
are expected to be taken back to the manufacturer atmanage users, weapon information, personnel information,
intervals of say 6 to 12 months for renewal; but this is
check period (expiry, maintenance and shelf life dates),
often ignored to the detriment of the country at large
etc. System user with administrator role is the user with
and the immediate environment in particular. super user role to the system. This category of user will
have the full administrative access rights to each module in
VIII. OUR PROPOSED SOLUTION the system. The administrator is the "gatekeeper" of the
In view of all the problems mentioned above ranging from system and has right to assign users to different role in the
storage, allocation to tracking, we proposed a system.
computerised weapon tracking system to enable ministry
of defence manage their weapons and ammunitions. The B. User Module
architecture of the system is described below. System users with user role are those users with gunnery
role as assigned by the system administrator (amourer).
IX. HIGH LEVEL MODEL OF THE NEW SYSTEM These group of users have limited access or privilege to all
The system we developed basically has two modules – components of the system. Some of the privileges given to
administrator and user (amoury) modules. However, these this group of users are sign in/out weapons, check
modules have sub-modules which are described below: weapons, check periods (expiry, maintenance and shelf life
dates), weapon and personnel information, etc. meanwhile
the high level model of the system is presented in figure 1.
WITS
X. ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM
Login The Weaponry Information and Tracking System only
covers weapons legally acquired from known sources and
then distributed officially to known security agencies.
Serial numbers of weapons with their features are stored in
Administrator Module User Module a comprehensive database along with the information of
their handlers. When a firearm, spent bullet, spent
cartridge case (shell) or live ammunition is recovered at a
Create Users Personnel/Weapon crime scene, it would easily be traced to the source. Thus,
s Information the system would be very useful in tracing weapons used
in crimes, the people involved, and their suppliers if such
Manage Users culprits are not security agents. The system has the
Check Periods
following unique features:
Manage Weapons a) Real-Time Search of weapons expiry date: One
Expiry
Weapons important feature of this new system is that expiry
dates of weapons are easily detected by the system. A
Check Periods
Maintenance system check is run at a regular basis and the user is
expected to enter a period in month(s) in which the
Expiry Shelf Life system will display any or all weapons due to expire
within the stated period in form of a report.
Maintenance b) Real-Time Search of weapons maintenance period:
Check Another important feature of this new system is that
Personnel/ maintenance period of weapons are detected by the
Shelf Life Weapons system. If the period for maintenance draws close
Sign In/Out according to the time period in month(s) set by the
Change Weapons armourer or whoever is designated to do so, the
Password system displays in report form all weapons due for
Assign Butt maintenance at the stated period.
Number c) Real-time search of weapons’ shelf-life: This feature
Check
helps the system to detect the shelf-life of weapons.
Personnel/ As earlier stated, shelf-life is the length of time weapons
Weapons may be stored before the performance degrades.
Sign In/Out
XI. CONCLUSION
Weapons
Considering the constant rise in security challenges in the
world and the need to reduce them, we have developed this
Fig. 1. High Level Model of the New System system to help in curtailing some of the problems
Copyright to IJARCCE DOI 10.17148/IJARCCE.2015.45132 622
 ISSN (Online) 2278-1021
ISSN (Print) 2319-5940

International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering

Vol. 4, Issue 5, May 2015

experienced by the security agencies. This system is

installable in both mobile and desktop devices. This will
enable security agencies to keep track of their weapons
and personnel in possession of those weapons. The system
is embedded with real-time alert feature. This feature will
alert the user on the weapons that are about to expire, those
that require maintenance and those that are about to
degrade. This will go a long way in eradicating the
problems facing the security agencies on weapon and
ammunition management.

REFERENCES
[1] A. Bosun, Security challenges pose risk to Nigeria. Coastweek
Newspapers Ltd. December 21, 2012.
[2] B. O. Bisola, Issues of Insecurity: How complicit are the security
agencies – A comprehensive resolution of Nigeria’s security issues.
Vanguard Newspaper, June 27, 2012.
[3] C. O. Uwa, Design and Implementation of Weaponry information
and Tracking system: For Nigerian army. Unpublished Thesis
submitted to the Department of Computer Science, Nnamdi
Azikiwe University, Awka, 2015.
[4] A. Wilkinson, Targeting Ammunition - Stockpile Management of
Ammunition. Chapter 8, Pages 248 – 252, 2005
[5] D. B. Kopel, Ballistic fingerprints. In Ayn Embar-seddon, Allan D.
Pass (eds.). Forensic Science. Salem Press. 2008
[6] L. Karen, “Foressic Ballistics”, 2008.
[7] K. Carlo, Active and Semiactive Radar Missile Guidance.
Australian Aviation, 2005, 1982. Available:
http://www.ausairpower.net/TE-Radar-AAMs.html,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_guidance

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