A gyroscope is a rotating mass that operates on the principle of "Rigidity in Space".

What this means is

that once the gyroscope is spinning, it tends to remain in its position and resists being moved. A good
example is a bicycle wheel. If you were to hold a wheel by its axle and then spin it faster and faster,
you would see this. As the wheel begins to spin, it is easy to tilt it back and forth, however as it gets
spinning faster, it gets harder and harder to tilt it. This is what "rigidity in space" means. The greater
the spinning mass and the closer that mass is located to the spinning axis, the better the gyro will be.
Imagine the above illustration as that biclycle tire. Notice that as the gyro spins faster, it becomes
harder and harder to deflect the gyro. Once the gyro is spinning, it can be used to show movements
around a given axis.
A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of
conservation of angular momentum.[1] A mechanical gyroscope is essentially a spinning wheel or disk
whose axle is free to take any orientation. This orientation changes much less in response to a given
external torque than it would without the large angular momentum associated with the gyroscope's
high rate of spin. Since external torque is minimized by mounting the device in gimbals, its orientation
remains nearly fixed, regardless of any motion of the platform on which it is mounted.
A gimbal is a pivoted support that allows the rotation of an object about a single axis

In physics, angular momentum, moment of momentum, or rotational momentum[1][2] is a

conserved vector quantity that can be used to describe the overall state of a physical system. The
angular momentum L of a particle with respect to some point of origin is

where r is the particle's position from the origin, p = mv is its linear momentum, and × denotes
the cross product.

The angular momentum of a system of particles (e.g. a rigid body) is the sum of angular
momenta of the individual particles. For a rigid body rotating around an axis of symmetry (e.g.
the fins of a ceiling fan), the angular momentum can be expressed as the product of the body's
moment of inertia I (a measure of an object's resistance to changes in its rotation rate) and its
angular velocity ω:

In this way, angular momentum is sometimes described as the rotational analog of linear
momentum.

Angular momentum is conserved in a system where there is no net external torque, and its
conservation helps explain many diverse phenomena
In physics and mathematics, a pseudovector (or axial vector) is a quantity that transforms like a vector
under a proper rotation (that is, a rotation by an arbitrary angle about an arbitrary axis), but gains an
additional sign flip under an improper rotation

Two dimensions

The angular velocity of the particle at P with respect to the origin O is determined by the
perpendicular component of the velocity vector v.

The angular velocity of a particle in a 2-dimensional plane is the easiest to understand. As shown
in the figure on the right (typically expressing the angular measures φ and θ in radians), if we
draw a line from the origin (O) to the particle (P), then the velocity vector (v) of the particle will
have a component along the radius (radial component, v∥) and a component perpendicular to the
radius (cross-radial component, v ). However, it must be remembered that the velocity vector
can be also decomposed into tangential and normal components.

A radial motion produces no change in the distance of the particle relative to the origin, so for
purposes of finding the angular velocity the parallel (radial) component can be ignored.
Therefore, the rotation is completely produced by the tangential motion (like that of a particle
moving along a circumference), and the angular velocity is completely determined by the
perpendicular (tangential) component.

It can be seen that the rate of change of the angular position of the particle is related to the cross-
radial velocity by:[1]
Utilizing θ, the angle between vectors v∥ and v, or equivalently as the angle between vectors r
and v, gives:

Combining the above two equations and defining the angular velocity as ω=dΦ/dt yields:

In two dimensions the angular velocity is a single number which has no direction. A single
number which has no direction is either a scalar or a pseudoscalar, the difference being that a
scalar does not change its sign when the x and y axes are exchanged (or inverted), while a
pseudoscalar does. The angle as well as the angular velocity is a pseudoscalar. The positive
direction of rotation is taken, by convention, to be in the direction towards the y axis from the x
axis. If the axes are inverted, but the sense of a rotation does not, then the sign of the angle of
rotation, and therefore the angular velocity as well, will change.

It is important to note that the pseudoscalar angular velocity of a particle depends upon the
choice of the origin.

[edit] Three dimensions

Classical mechanics

Newton's Second Law

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In three dimensions, the angular velocity becomes a bit more complicated. The angular velocity
in this case is generally thought of as a vector, or more precisely, a pseudovector. It now has not
only a magnitude, but a direction as well. The magnitude is the angular speed, and the direction
describes the axis of rotation. The right-hand rule indicates the positive direction of the angular
velocity pseudovector.

Just as in the two dimensional case, a particle will have a component of its velocity along the
radius from the origin to the particle, and another component perpendicular to that radius. The
combination of the origin point and the perpendicular component of the velocity defines a plane
of rotation in which the behavior of the particle (for that instant) appears just as it does in the two
dimensional case. The axis of rotation is then a line normal to this plane, and this axis defined the
direction of the angular velocity pseudovector, while the magnitude is the same as the
pseudoscalar value found in the 2-dimensional case. Define a unit vector which points in the
direction of the angular velocity pseudovector. The angular velocity may be written in a manner
similar to that for two dimensions:

which, by the definition of the cross product, can be written:

[edit] For a moving frame
Euler's rotation theorem states that, in an instant, for any dt there always exists a momentary axis
of rotation. Therefore, any transversal section of the body by a plane perpendicular to this axis
has to behave as a two dimensional rotation. The angular speed vector will be defined over the
rotation axis (eigenvector of the linear map), and as such its value is the derivative of the angle
rotated with respect to time.

Ring:

A ring laser gyroscope (RLG) consists of a ring laser having two counter-propagating modes over the
same path in order to detect rotation. It operates on the principle of the Sagnac effect which shifts the
nulls of the internal standing wave pattern in response to angular rotation. Interference between the
counter-propagating beams, observed externally, reflects shifts in that standing wave pattern, and thus
rotation

DESCRIPTION

Ring laser gyroscopes can be used as the stable elements (for one degree of freedom each) in an
inertial reference system. The advantage of using an RLG is that there are no moving parts.
Compared to the conventional spinning gyroscope, this means there is no friction, which in turn
means there will be no inherent drift terms. Additionally, the entire unit is compact, lightweight
and virtually indestructible, meaning it can be used in aircraft. Unlike a mechanical gyroscope,
the device does not resist changes to its orientation.

Primary applications of the laser gyro include navigation systems on commercial airliners, ships
and spacecraft, where RLGs are often part of Air Data Inertial Reference Units. In these
applications, it has replaced its mechanical counterpart, the Inertial guidance system.
Principle of operation
A certain rate of rotation induces a small difference between the time it takes light to traverse the
ring in the two directions according to the Sagnac effect. This introduces a tiny separation
between the frequencies of the counter-propagating beams, a motion of the standing wave pattern
within the ring, and thus a beat pattern when those two beams are interfered outside the ring.
Therefore the net shift of that interference pattern follows the rotation of the unit in the plane of
the ring.

RLGs, while more accurate than mechanical gyroscopes, suffer from an effect known as "lock-
in" at very slow rotation rates. When the ring laser is hardly rotating, the frequencies of the
counter-propagating laser modes become almost identical. In this case crosstalk in between the
counter-propagating beams can allow for injection locking so that the standing wave "gets stuck"
in a preferred phase, thus locking the frequency of each beam to each other rather than
responding to gradual rotation.

Forced dithering can largely overcome this problem. The ring laser cavity is rotated clockwise
and anti-clockwise about its axis using a mechanical spring driven at its resonance frequency.
This ensures that the angular velocity of the system is usually far from the lock-in threshold.
Typical rates are 400 Hz, with a peak dither velocity of 1 arc-second per second. Dither does not
fix the lock-in problem completely, as each time the direction of rotation is reversed, a short time
interval exists in which the rotation rate is near zero and lock-in can briefly occur. In a
technically more complicated solution the gyro assembly is not rotated back and forth, but in one
direction only at a constant angular rate.

A related device is the fibre optic gyroscope which also operates on the basis of the Sagnac
effect, but in which the ring is not a part of the laser. Rather, an external laser injects counter-
propagating beams into an optical fiber ring, and rotation of the system then causes a relative
phase shift between those beams when interfered after their pass through the fiber ring
proportional to the rate of rotation. This is therefore less sensitive than the RLG in which the
externally observed phase shift is proportional to the accumulated rotation itself, not its
derivative. However the sensitivity of the fiber gyro is enhanced by having a long optical fiber
coiled for compactness, but in which the Sagnac effect is multiplied according to the number of
turns.

If a ring laser is rotating, the two counter-propagating waves are slightly shifted in frequency and a beat
interference pattern is observed, which can be used to determine the rotational speed.

A beam of light is split and the two beams are made to follow a trajectory in opposite directions. To act
as a ring the trajectory must enclose an area. On return to the point of entry the light is allowed to exit
the apparatus in such a way that an interference pattern is obtained. The position of the interference
fringes is dependent on the angular velocity of the setup. This arrangement is also called a Sagnac
interferometer

( An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation aid that uses a computer, motion sensors
(accelerometers) and rotation sensors (gyroscopes) to continuously calculate via dead reckoning the
position, orientation, and velocity (direction and speed of movement) of a moving object without the
need for external reference)

"lock-in"DRAW BACK)

When the ring laser is hardly rotating, the frequencies of the counter-propagating laser modes become
almost identical. In this case crosstalk in between the counter-propagating beams can allow for injection
locking so that the standing wave "gets stuck" in a preferred phase, thus locking the frequency of each
beam to each other rather than responding to gradual rotation.

OVER COMED BY fiber optic gyro:

A fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) is a gyroscope that uses the interference of light to detect mechanical
rotation. The sensor is a coil of as much as 5 km of optical fiber. Two light beams travel along the fiber in
opposite directions. Due to the Sagnac effect, the beam travelling against the rotation experiences a
slightly shorter path than the other beam. The resulting phase shift affects how the beams interfere with
each other when they are combined. The intensity of the combined beam then depends on the angular
frequency of the device