This paper describes an approach to identify epicyclic and tricyclic motion during projectileflight caused by mass asymmetries in spin-stabilized projectiles. Flight video was capturedfollowing projectile launch of several M110A2E1 155mm artillery projectiles. These videoswere then analyzed using the Automated Flight Video Analysis method to attain their initialposition and orientation histories.Examination of the pitch and yaw histories clearly indicates that in addition to epicyclicmotion’s nutation and precession oscillations, an even faster wobble amplitude is presentduring each spin revolution, even though some of the amplitudes of the oscillation aresmaller than 0.02 degrees. The results are compared to a sequence of shots where littleappreciable mass asymmetries were present, and only nutation and precession frequenciesare predominantly apparent in the motion history results. Magnitudes of the wobble motionare estimated and compared to product of inertia measurements of the asymmetricprojectiles.
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