Patent ID: 6178141
Filing Date: 2001-01-23
Classification: F41H,G01S,Y10S

Abstract:
A system for determining the trajectory of a supersonic projectile comprising:at least two spaced apart sensor nodes each in a known location encountering pressure waves generated by said supersonic projectile passing proximate to said sensor nodes, said sensor nodes each comprising a transducer collecting pressure wave information and generating pressure wave information signals in response to said pressure waves, the pressure wave information signals having a time series information signal;a main processor processing said time series information signal to provide parameter information for determining said trajectory of said supersonic projectile; said processor comprising,a shock threshold detector receiving said time series information and recording arrival times of shock wave components of said pressure waves at each transducer for each of said at least two spaced apart sensor nodes,a cross correlation processor receiving said arrival times of shock wave components of said pressure waves at each transducer and determining relative shock wave arrival times,a blast threshold detector receiving said time series information and recording arrival times and amplitude information of potential blast wave components of said pressure waves at each transducer for each of said at least two spaced apart sensor nodes;a discrimination processor discriminating said potential blast wave components to classify each of said potential blast wave components as blast wave, shock wave, or neither, and storing arrival times of each of said potential blast wave components classified as blast wave, a ballistic coefficient processor estimating a ballistic coefficient of said supersonic projectile as a function of peak voltage (Vp) and N-wave slope (V/T) of said time series information, anda trajectory estimation processor calculating an estimated trajectory of said projectile based on said ballistic coefficient and said relative shock wave arrival times.