Fibre optic gyrocompass
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A fibre optic gyrocompass is a compass and instrument of navigation.[1] It is sometimes part of a ship's set of compasses, which also include a conventional gyrocompass and a magnetic compass under SOLAS requirements for the ship to be fitted with compass systems.[2]
The compass comprises a fibre optic gyroscope sensor that operates on the principle of the Sagnac effect which links to a computer and then locates north.[3] This in turn links to a compass readout to provide a heading.[4] It has very high reliability and requires little maintenance during its service life.[4] The entire system usually includes a sensor unit, a control and display unit, and an interface and power supply unit. It is often linked with the ship's other navigational devices including GPS.