Ring laser gyroscope
Giroscopio láser de anillo
- Date
- 1963 · confidence high
- Place
- Great Neck, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Warren Macek and Dennis Davis (Sperry)
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A ring laser cavity with two counter-propagating beams whose frequency difference measures rotation, with no moving parts. It applies the Sagnac effect and was installed in aircraft and missiles.
Macek and Davis demonstrated it in January 1963 at Sperry; correction of lock-in by dithering came later.
What it led to
- inertial navigation without moving parts in aviation
- fibre-optic gyroscopes
- measuring Earth's rotation with ring lasers