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.
- ^ "Marine Fiber Optic and Spinning Mass Gyrocompasses". IEEE Xplore. 2020-11-06. Retrieved 2023-11-19.
- ^ Pascoli, Gianni (2017). "The Sagnac effect and its interpretation by Paul Langevin" (PDF). Comptes Rendus Physique. 18 (9–10). Cellule MathDoc/CEDRAM: 563–569. doi:10.1016/j.crhy.2017.10.010. ISSN 1631-0705.
- ^ a b Seamanship Techniques:Shipboard and Marine Operations, D. J. House, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004, p. 341