Restraining zero drift in an ultrahigh-g impact environment

To restrain the zero drift of a piezoelectric accelerometer and the zero drift from a charge amplifier (CA) in an ultrahigh-g impact environment, a reformative design approach for an on-board ultrahigh-g decelerationtime measurement system is presented. First, a simplified zero-drift model of the on-board ultrahigh-g decelerationtime measurement system is built. Secondly, possible reasons for zero drifts in the ultrahigh-g impact environment are discussed. Then, a universal reformative CA and subsequent circuits are designed for restraining the zero drift. Finally, an air cannon is used to simulate the ultrahigh-g impact environment and a modified Michelson-type laser interferometer is set as a primary standard source to calibrate the reformative on-board measurement system. Comparisons between the measured curve and the reference curve verify that the zero drift is less than 3% of the peak value and decelerationtime data describe the real penetration process accurately. All differences in curves are not due to the proposed design and can be characterized by errors or uncertainties. Experimental results prove that the proposed design approach can restrain the zero drift effectively in the ultrahigh-g impact environment.