Real-time self-compensating gravity gradiometer instrument

摘要

A real-time self-compensating gravity gradiometer (GGI) of the type having an input plane (IP) includes a mass concentration (MC) that is moved along an orbital path (16) in the input plane (IP) to cause a positionally varying gravity perturbation in the gradiometer near field that causes a corresponding signal output. The characteristics of the perturbation function are quantifiable and compared to the corresponding output function of the gradiometer (GGI). The differences between the quantified perturbation function and the gradiometer (GGI) output function represents an aggregate instrument error that is processed into an error reducing or compensation function to improve gradiometer (GGI) accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio.