The design and analyse for accelerometer-based gravity gradiometer

The gravity gradient which reflects the details of gravitational field of the Earth is the derivative of gravitation. Compared with gravitational survey, the biggest advantage of gravity gradient survey is that its resolution is higher than gravitational survey. At present there are twenty-four gravity apparatuses in investigation and eighteen of them are gravity gradiometers. Gravity gradiometer has been the development direction of gravity apparatus. Lots of different types of gravity gradiometer instruments (GGIs) have been designed. The most widely used gravity gradiometer instrument (GGI) is Bell/Aero rotating disc GGI using accelerometers as sensor. In this paper, the principle of accelerometer-based gravity gradiometer is analyzed and such the measurements formulas for this instrument are derived using the basic equation of acceleration in a rotating body. Then according to the formulas, the measurements of Bell/Aero gravity gradiometer are derived for the first time. Lastly, the key technologies of the instrument and the questions in the process of follow-up study are summed up. The methods for solving these questions are also talk about.