SBIR-STTR Award

A fiber optic system is proposed in order to provide the air force high speed test track facility at Holloman Air Force base in new Mexico with the capability to accurately measure the velocity of rocket sleds in the speed regime of 2000 to 8000 feet per second. the accuracy of the proposed system is 10 times that requested by the solicitation. The design of the sensors is simple, and the system is highly resistant to the test track and desert environment. The proposed program consists of design development, fabrication of prototype hardware, and a set of experiments at the test track with the prototype hardware.

A fiber optic approach is proposed to provide highly accurate position-time measurements of rocket sleds at the Holloman AFB high speed test track. Time resolution and accuracy of 1 microsecond is possible with this system as demonstrated in Phase I with a set of prototype sensors. The phase I results agreed well with time measurement systems already in place in the track. The Phase II system will consist of 24 fiber optic sensors that are mounted on the track with an electronics unit to capture and store the time measurements and to interface to test track facilities. The absolute time of passage of the rocket sled is stored, and data is gathered to allow an estimation of the sled velocity at an individual station. Alternative sensors are to be developed that allow velocity measurements of the sled in rocket powered regions and of hypervelocity projectiles as they leave the track. These sensors require no modification of the electronics unit.