A Method of Identifying Supersonic Projectiles Using Acoustic Signatures.
Richard B. Loucks, Bradford S. Davis, Linda Moss, Tien Pham, Manfai Fong · 1995
Abstract : There was a need to investigate the feasibility of attaching a device to the existing Remote Equipment Target System (RETS) such that RETS would be able to identify the type of projectile that struck the target. A concept was developed to identify projectiles acoustically by measuring some characteristics of N-Wave produced from the projectile's sonic boom. High fidelity microphones were positioned to provide N-Wave profiles. The distance between the sonic boom's source and the microphone was the most important parameter. An array of six low-fidelity microphones was used to locate the projectile location. By utilizing the sonic boom arrival times and knowledge of the spatial locations of the low-fidelity microphones, the location of the projectile relative to the high-fidelity microphones was determined. The concept development was broken into three phases - feasibility, data collection, and finally validation and verification of the concept's functionality. A prototype unit called a Round Discrimination System (RDS) was fabricated and field tested in the validation verification phase. The RDS unit was transported to the 7th ATC in Germany for a demonstration. This report provides details of each phase of the development program and the results of the onsite demo in Germany.