What is gyroscope? How does a fiber optic gyro work?

What is gyroscope? Gyroscope is a product used for maintaining or measuring direction and angular velocity. It is the core element for measuring the azimuth or angular velocity of a carrier, consisting high-speed rotating rotor and bearing system that ensures, the rotor’s rotating axis can rotate freely in space. See fiber optic gyro work principle as below:

Popularly speaking, gyroscope has two basic characteristics, (axial or rigidity) and (precession), making it stable during high-speed rotation. People can use the direction of gyro to identify direction, determine attitude, calculate angular velocity. It is widely used in aviation, aerospace and navigation fields, and also it is mostly used in navigation system, positioning system and other systems. Gyro integrated system adopt accelerometers and gyroscopes as core parts, wherein the gyro is a three-axis, corresponding to the rolling, pitching and yaw angles, can be three single-axis gyro or two dual-axis gyro or a three-axis gyro. Gyro type can be MEMS gyro, dynamically tuned gyro, fiber optic gyro, ring laser gyro etc. How to use and how does gyroscope work, check the following aspects:

1.North finder: It is also called north seeker. High-precision gyroscope independently determine the true north direction value of attached carrier by measuring the earth’s rotation angular velocity. During power-up north search, the gyro rotates at a high speed, so it cannot be moved during the north seeking process.
2.Inertial navigation system(INS): Without any satellite navigation information, it is usually using gyro and acceleration sensor(accelerometer) to realize autonomous navigation device. The longer the time is, the greater the drift and deviation will be.
3.North seeking fiber optic gyroscope: There is only one fiber optic gyroscope inside, which is non-mechanical, so its durability is better than that of a general north seeker. Its performance is the same as its principle and its price is expensive.
4.Gyro compass: It can be used in vehicle, underwater, and aerospace attitude measurement. Adopting miniaturized high-precision three-axis fiber optic gyro and high-precision quartz flexible accelerometer, it achieves rapid north seeking under the shaking pedestal, and can be maintained after entering the compass mode, then keep azimuth and horizontal attitude accuracy.
5.Strapdown inertial navigation system(SINS): High-precision three-axis fiber optic gyroscopes and high-precision quartz flexible accelerometers implement north seeking and positioning. They are purely inertial navigation systems, and antennas are generally provided on the ground.

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