AFTE Store - Reliability of Doppler Radar Measurements

The drag coefficient is the most important aerodynamic coefficient to enable exterior ballistic calculations and can be determined experimentally by Doppler Radar measurements. However, measurements of bullets fired from handguns, which became available to the (forensic community» quite often show nonsensical values especially in the subsonic regime. This observation has been the motivation for an investigation into the general reliability of such measurements. The paper first discusses some basics of the measuring principles of tracking radar systems. This appears to be justified as these devices normally do not belong to the standard equipment of forensic labs and only a minority of readers of this article may have had some experience with this measuring technique. Concrete results of tracking radar measurements of long-range trajectories from the U.S: Army Yuma Proving Grounds were made available by AFTE member Luke Haag, FSSI Carefree, AZ. These measurements allow an analysis of the reliability of this measuring technique.

Full Journal: AFTE Journal Vol 43 No 3 (2011)