On March 15, NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory entered into safe mode, temporarily suspending science operations due to degrading performance from one of its three gyroscopes (gyros), which are used to point the observatory ...
Astronomy
Mar 19, 2024
0
1
A team of scientists has developed a novel way to measure variations in the Earth's rotation. In their paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, the team explains how their new approach works and how well it did when ...
Researchers have taken an important new step in advancing the performance of resonator fiber optic gyroscopes, a type of fiber optic sensor that senses rotation using only light. Because gyroscopes are the basis of most navigation ...
Optics & Photonics
Dec 21, 2020
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1245
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have upgraded their compact atomic gyroscope to enable multitasking measurement capabilities and measure its performance, important steps toward practical ...
Quantum Physics
Jul 11, 2019
0
131
Fiber optic gyroscopes, which measure the rotation and orientation of airplanes and other moving objects, are inherently limited in their precision when using ordinary classical light. In a new study, physicists have experimentally ...
Gyroscopes are devices that help vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space. They are commonplace in just about every bit of technology we rely on every ...
Optics & Photonics
Oct 25, 2018
1
614
A team of researchers from Pomona College and the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden has figured out how a wild petunia plant is able to fling its seeds so far. In their paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, ...
You don't have to be perfectly organized to pull off a wave, according to University of Chicago scientists.
Quantum Physics
Jan 15, 2018
9
282
With the whirl of a thumb, Georgia Tech researchers have created technology that allows people to trace letters and numbers on their fingers and see the figures appear on a nearby computer screen. The system is triggered ...
Engineering
Nov 30, 2017
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833
A team of scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India, have found new ways to detect a bare or naked singularity, the most extreme object in the universe.
General Physics
Apr 20, 2017
5
1736
A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of conservation of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation. Although this orientation does not remain fixed, it changes in response to an external torque much less and in a different direction than it would without the large angular momentum associated with the disk's high rate of spin and moment of inertia. Since external torque is minimized by mounting the device in gimbals, its orientation remains nearly fixed, regardless of any motion of the platform on which it is mounted.
Gyroscopes based on other operating principles also exist, such as the electronic, microchip-packaged MEMS gyroscope devices found in consumer electronic devices, solid-state ring lasers, fibre optic gyroscopes, and the extremely sensitive quantum gyroscope.
Applications of gyroscopes include inertial navigation systems where magnetic compasses would not work (as in the Hubble telescope) or would not be precise enough (as in ICBMs), or for the stabilization of flying vehicles like radio-controlled helicopters or unmanned aerial vehicles. Due to their precision, gyroscopes are also used to maintain direction in tunnel mining.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
