![]() ![]() They can help keep satellites and spacecrafts pointed in one direction. The rotation of the disks measures both the orientation of the gyroscope itself and how fast it is turning in one direction or another. Usually, a gyroscope is made of a wheel or disk that rotates around another disk or axis. A gyroscope in an object can detect whether the object is pointing up, down or to the side. Another type of optical gyroscope is the fibre-optic gyroscope, which dispenses with hollow tubes and mirrors in favour of routing the light through thin fibres wound tightly around a small spool.This is a device that measures the three-dimensional position of something in space. The patterns of all three rings are then numerically integrated in order to determine the turning rate of the craft in three dimensions. As the vehicle executes a turning or pitching motion, interference patterns created in the corresponding rings of the gyroscope are measured by photoelectric cells. In reality, the “rings” are usually triangles, squares, or rectangles filled with inert gases through which the beams are reflected by mirrors. In the ring laser gyroscope, laser beams are split and then directed on opposite paths through three mutually perpendicular hollow rings attached to a vehicle. Gyroscopes utilizing the Sagnac effect began to appear in the 1960s, following the invention of the laser and the development of fibre optics. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. ![]() The first automatic pilot for ships was installed in a Danish passenger ship by a German company in 1916, and in that same year a gyroscope was used in the design of the first artificial horizon for aircraft. ![]() Sperry built the first automatic pilot using a gyroscope to maintain an aircraft on course. Anschütz-Kaempfe for use in a submersible. This ability suggested a number of applications for the gyroscope as a direction indicator, and in 1908 the first workable gyrocompass was developed by German inventor H. During the 1850s Foucault conducted an experiment using such a rotor and demonstrated that the spinning wheel maintained its original orientation in space regardless of Earth’s rotation. The angular momentum of the spinning rotor caused it to maintain its attitude even when the gimbal assembly was tilted. Mechanical gyroscopes are based on a principle discovered in the 19th century by Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault, a French physicist who gave the name gyroscope to a wheel, or rotor, mounted in gimbal rings. Gyroscopes are used in compasses and automatic pilots on ships and aircraft, in the steering mechanisms of torpedoes, and in the inertial guidance systems installed in space launch vehicles, ballistic missiles, and orbiting satellites. Gyroscope, device containing a rapidly spinning wheel or circulating beam of light that is used to detect the deviation of an object from its desired orientation.
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