Gyroscope, Ring, Corner Prism
Saturday, September 09, 2006
A Corner Prism Ring Gyroscope has been designed and developed consisting of a solid monolithic block of ultra-low expansion glass ceramic with continuous holes drilled for the laser light beam path. Mirrors are attached at the corners to form a closed laser light beam path. The laser light consists of two opposite directed independent laser light beams, oscillating at a different frequency. When the Gyroscope is not rotating about its input axis, the optical path length of the laser light beams is identical. When the Gyroscope is rotated around an axis normal to the laser light beam plane, the laser light beam traveling in the direction of rotation takes longer to traverse a closed path than the laser light beam traveling against the direction of rotation. This results in a path length difference for the two laser light beams. The beat frequency difference is proportional to the input angular rate.
Source: Photonics Spectra
Reference: Fred Aronowitz, Rockwell International, Inc., Anaheim, CA
Industrial Products
posted by JD52 @ 1:13 PM,
