Gun Stabilisation

[Stephen White]

Adrian

I echo Steve's comments on your remote switching idea. It prompted me to start thinking about an aspect of the Centurion which will have to be solved, namely how to replicate the gun stabilisation. The Cent had a very effective elevation stabilsation system which maintained the lay in elevation whatever pitching angle the hull presented.

We just have to find a way to replicate it. RC helicopters use gyro stabilisation to maintain a heading hold so I wonder whether those gyros could be adapted to drive the elevation motor, although I suspect the latter would have to respond a lot quicker that currently.

Here's a basic guide to heading hold gyros:

http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/rc-helicopter-gyro.html

With all the talent on this forum, maybe someone has some ideas?

Regards

Stephen

[Adrian Harris]

Funnily enough ...

I don't think using an elevation motor would be possible, even if you could introduce some form of feedback such as a rotary encoder or potentiometer. The problem with a motor is that there is no accurate correlation between the power put into the motor and the resultant number of turns of the elevation screw - it would all be dependant on the system inertia, the gravitational load on the barrel etc.

I would think it should be much easier to develop a system whereby the elevation was controlled by a high power servo, though the barrel would still have to be balanced quite accurately to prevent overloading the servo. Using some form of mechanical advantage would speed up the response of the barrel, though that runs the risk of introducing barrel bounce when in motion.

You then have the added problem of ensuring the system knows the current angle of turret turn, such that the gun doesn't try and automatically depress into the engine deck etc. That will need some form of angular sensor for the turret - probably fitted to the turret anchoring strap.

All good fun for the little grey cells...

Adrian.

[Nick Farrugia]

HI Steven and Adrian
A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY sorry start again
A long time ago i was trying to learn to fly planes and at that time i bought a devise that was like an auto pilot that was conectted to the tx and servos . IT worked of ,of light ,with light sensors and kept the aircraft on level flight if you left the controls stationary for a time if the air craft nosed up it would automaticly bring it down and vise versa going down it would it would bring it up it was capable of three or for channel or more operation ,it just sent signals to the relevant servos when light from the horizon was picked up through the sensors . I remember it was quit quick in responce i forget exacly what it was called it was deffinatley something auto pilot ,sorry dont know exacly ,this was some time ago so i would think they have come a long way with the tekno by now ,anyway just a thought .all the best
,,,,,,,,,,,, nick

[Fabrice Le Roux]

Hello Chaps,

Gyro stabilisation. Tricky one. Some info and experimental feedback did appear on other forums (fora/fori??) some years ago when A N Other model producer started making post war types. UK Tank Club was one such source.

I came across a Turkish engineer's final degree thesis looking at the theory and design of a computer-controlled gyrostabilization/target tracking system for tanks. The testbed was a 1/6th Challenger. The problem is that it is complete overkill for an elevation-only system.

Perhaps a simpler mechanical linkage, using a damped pendulum, might give the illusion of single axis gyrostabilisation on the move. The damping would kill the high frequency wobble. Avoids butchering my kid's RC helos too...

The key would be balancing the barrel/breech assembly about the trunnions to remove unwanted loads and backlash. Has anyone seen any toy RC tanks that have pseudo-stabilized guns?
The recoil problem was cracked by toymakers and modded by clever bods hereabouts as I recall.

Was the AVRE Petard even stablized at all?

Cheers, Fabrice