Electromagnetic railgun in-bore velocity measurement with microwave Doppler radar

This paper describes the preliminary experiments of measuring the in-bore velocity in 30 mm 25 mm caliber augmented railgun with W-band Doppler radar. The results indicate that the radar signals are strongly affected by pulsed magnetic field and armature-rail electrical contact. At low charging voltage, no arc generated between contact surfaces and the whole in-bore velocity was obtained; while at higher charging voltage, due to the generation of electrical arcs, the radar signal was attenuated too much and the velocity results was poor.