Velocity Measurement System for Small Caliber Projectiles

The use of state of art instrumentation systems to measure high-speed events has increased tremendously in the past few decades. The current study aimed at measuring the velocity of small caliber projectiles within the desired limits of accuracy. The velocity of the projectile is calculated by dividing the distance between two downrange measurement locations, by the difference of the time when the projectile arrives at these locations. The work comprised of development and testing of a signal conditioning circuitry to process the signals received at the two downrange locations. The system thus developed measures the velocity of the projectiles of different calibers, traveling at the speeds varying from 397m/s to 912m/s, within accuracy limits of ±1%. Index terms Projectile, laser, small caliber, velocity