Techniques of Measurement and Automatic Analysis of Dynamic Motion with Application to Some Re-Entry Experiments

An automatic technique, utilizing a large high speed computer for the analysis of records obtained from accelerometers, pressure guages and gyros installed in the re-entry vehicles of the Black Knight rocket, is described. It is shown that this enables a suitable arrangement of only three accelerometers to yield trajectory data, angular motion and the aerodynamic characteristics of the re-entry body. Examples of the analysis of accelerometer and rate gyro data are given and the lines of further development and some applications are indicated.