Direction switched mode-locked laser gyroscope

Abstract

This invention relates to a laser gyroscope. This invention provides a direction-switched mode-locked laser gyroscope, comprising: a laser resonator including a laser gain medium and an optical path, one end of the resonator being connected to a reflector and the other end of the resonator being composed of a Sagnac loop; wherein the gyroscope is operated by pulses generated from an optical switch connected to the Sagnac loop. The laser gyroscope according to the invention has a better durability than a conventional He-Ne type laser gyrocope. It can produce an output signal which can be processed more simply than that of the interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope since the output signal is characterized by frequencies corresponding to the rotation rate. The gyroscope operates to produce a pulse output, reducing lock-in effect compared with a gyroscope producing continuous wave output.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.