Piezoelectric Actuation system for Small Arms Gun Barrel Stabilization

The innovation of this proposal is a configuration to achieve an active barrel stabilization system which:  uses piezoelectric components as the core of the actuation mechanism, which provide high bandwidth, backlash free motion,  uses electronic compensation to cancel piezoelectric element hysteresis and creep,  minimizes the size and weight of the piezoelectric actuators by using single crystal relaxor based piezoelectric components and by incorporating mechanical amplification,  is configured to allow the piezoelectric crystal to be mounted close to the shooter (minimizing aligned with the barrel of the gun,  decouples the shock of the weapon firing from damaging the crystal by using mechanical amplification, and by creating motion at 90 degrees from the motion of the piezoelectric component,  uses accelerometers to sense barrel motion and closed loop motion compensation to eliminate the motion in the compensation system pass-band. This approach eliminates the need for signal integration (eliminating drift problems), and small errors are inconsequential. Intelligent Automation Inc. has built systems which use this exact method of motion compensation and has eliminated random external vibration by 20 dbs and predictable motion by 40 dbs. In these systems sensor and actuator drift were irrelevant.