Improved Fuze Timing for Airburst Munitions

Tanner Research will develop and demonstrate a proof-of-concept airburst fuzing sensor for use in gun-launched munitions. A gun-hardened piezo-based sensor, with no moving parts, will sense setback and balloting accelerations to accurately pinpoint the projectiles transition into free-space at the barrel exit. Using analysis of the acquired data and the known and consistent barrel length, it will be possible to infer with microsecond precision barrel travel-time. From this data, a straightforward calculation of actual muzzle velocity can be provided to the fuze. This measurement can be used to modify (in flight) the fuze timing provided by the fire control computer to greatly increase the accuracy of the airburst. Fundamental to this approach is the need to implement a cost effective solution, as a full guidance systems have been shown to dramatically increase costs to the point of infeasibility. Moreover, since actual firing conditions in the gun breech will change between the first and any subsequent rounds fired, the performance of this timing method will effectively compensate for temperature variation compensates airburst fuze timing.