Optical Gyroscope

Laser gyroscopes are optical instruments for measuring the angular velocity based on the
Sagnac-effect. In combination with accelerometers they form so called inertial measurement
units that allow position and direction estimation by the dead reckoning technique. Today
this technique is most commonly used to navigate vessels, spacecrafts, satellites and even
aircrafts. Versions with high accuracy and precision are also used to measure the earths
rotation without the need of astronomical observations. There are several advantages of this technology over conventional mechanical gyroscopes and GPS position estimation, e.g.:

• No communication with external devices is mandatory (dead reckoning).
• It features digital output with a fast update rate.
• It is insensitive to vibration (no moving parts).

The presented lab work demonstrates the operation principles of a laser gyroscope based
on a HeNe-laser ring cavity. A complete setup mounted on a rotary table including alignment tools, detectors and analysis electronics/software is provided for the lab work.

Further content and detailed descriptions are available to enrolled students via the course's page at the Moodle website of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.