[time-nuts] Slightly OT - GPS-Based Accurate Direction Finding

[bg at lysator.liu.se]

>>> Does anyone know how laser gyroscopes are developing?
>>
>> Laser gyroscopes - as in Ring Laser Gyroscopes or as in Fiber Optic
>> Gyroscopes?
>>
>
> RLGs are a standard commercial product.  Several years back I was
> walking through the Honeywell plant in St Paul, MN, and they had a
> display case of at least a dozen RLGs that they've made over the past
> few decades.

Commercial?

US RLGs are all ITAR.

"All types of gyros usable in the systems in Item 1, with a rated drift
rate stability of less than 0.5 degree (1 sigma or rms) per hour"

    http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/offdocs/itar/p121.htm

Honeywell has about 2 different RLGs. Only one (gg1320) of which you can
make a north sensing out of. Litton (now NGC) used to do RLGs (their "zero
lock gyros") but I think they were on the loosing side of a patent war
with Honeywell.

French Sagem do some for high end military systems. Have I missed a RLG
manufacturer? Almost as few vendors as in the Cesium oscillator market...

No new RLG sensors has been announced during the last decade or two.

--

    Björn