Static measurement of absolute gravity in truck based on atomic gravimeter

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Currently, most of the experimental apparatuses of atomic gravimeters are complex in structure, large in size, and poor in environmental adaptability, so that they cannot be used to implement the absolute gravity measurement. Thus, the application areas of atomic gravimeter are greatly limited. In this paper, we integrate a system of absolute gravity measurement on a truck based on a compact homemade atomic gravimeter. This atomic gravimeter has a small size, light weight, low power consumption, and its accuracy is estimated as 10 μGal in the case of laboratory environment. This system consists of atomic gravimeter for gravity measurement, passive isolation platform for vibration suppression, posture platform for tilt adjustment, differential GPS for altitude measurement, UPS for power supply, air-conditioned truck for temperature control and transportation. At first, we estimate the performance of environmental adaptability for this measurement system on the truck, and it is found that this system can still work even at a high field temperature of 40 ℃ and a big tilt angle of 8° for the road. Besides, the experimental procedures of absolute gravity measurement and the methods of processing measured data are introduced. The Coriolis effect is analyzed and the dependence of measured gravity on the orientation of the truck has been measured. Finally, the repeated line measurements are performed on a flat field road. The accuracy of self-coincidence for absolute gravity measurement is evaluated to be 30 μGal and the difference in measured gravity among different locations is about 3080 μGal. Besides, we obtain the vertical gravity gradient of the earth by measuring the absolute gravity values at different altitude sites on a slope road, and the value is estimated to be －231(36) μGal/m. The presented results can provide the basic reference for the field absolute gravity survey.