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A microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) gyroscope is a miniaturized gyroscope found in electronic devices. It takes the idea of the Foucault pendulum and uses a vibrating element. This kind of gyroscope was first used in military applications but has since been adopted for increasing commercial use.
A control moment gyroscope (CMG) is an attitude control device generally used in spacecraft attitude control systems. A CMG consists of a spinning rotor and one or more motorized gimbals that tilt the rotor’s angular momentum .
Foucault published two papers in 1852, one focused on astronomy with the weight free to move on all three axes (On a new experimental demonstration of the motion of the Earth, based on the fixity of the plane of rotation) [8] and the other on mechanics with the weight free to move on only two axes (On the orientation phenomena of rotating bodies driven by a fixed axis on the Earth's surface.
The hypothesis attempted to explain how rotating objects, such as gyroscopes and spinning celestial bodies, maintain a frame of reference. The proposition is that the existence of absolute rotation (the distinction of local inertial frames vs. rotating reference frames ) is determined by the large-scale distribution of matter, as exemplified by ...
A ring laser gyroscope (RLG) consists of a ring laser having two independent counter-propagating resonant modes over the same path; the difference in phase is used to detect rotation. It operates on the principle of the Sagnac effect which shifts the nulls of the internal standing wave pattern in response to angular rotation.
The physics of nutation in tops and gyroscopes can be explored using the model of a heavy symmetrical top with its tip fixed. (A symmetrical top is one with rotational symmetry, or more generally one in which two of the three principal moments of inertia are equal.) Initially, the effect of friction is ignored.
The trivial case of the angular momentum of a body in an orbit is given by = where is the mass of the orbiting object, is the orbit's frequency and is the orbit's radius.. The angular momentum of a uniform rigid sphere rotating around its axis, instead, is given by = where is the sphere's mass, is the frequency of rotation and is the sphere's radius.
A fibre-optic gyroscope (FOG) senses changes in orientation using the Sagnac effect, thus performing the function of a mechanical gyroscope. However its principle of operation is instead based on the interference of light which has passed through a coil of optical fibre , which can be as long as 5 kilometres (3 mi).