The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 09, 1989
Filed:
Apr. 21, 1987
Harry L Gubbins, Grand Rapids, MI (US);
Jerry L Page, Kentwood, MI (US);
Daniel L Sugarbaker, Grand Rapids, MI (US);
Smiths Industries, Grand Rapids, MI (US);
SLI Avionic Systems Corp., Grand Rapids, MI (US);
Abstract
A triad sensor apparatus (300) comprises a passive ring Sagnac interferometric arrangement having a light source circuit (308) and a series of three multi-turn fiber optic rings (302, 304, 306). An optics/modulator circuit (312) is adapted to selectively switch optical waves emitted from the light source circuit (308) and transmit the signals through the corresponding fiber optic rings as counterpropagating optical waves. Nonreciprocal phase modulation is applied to the counter-propagating waves, and the waves are recombined so as to produce a 'zero order' fringe pattern having an intensity varying in accordance with the relative phase between the counterpropagating waves. Optical waves from the light source circuit (308) are selectively applied to a ring path during a given time period, while the photodetector circuit (324) is detecting light waves which have emerged from another ring path during the same given time period. Certain of the circuit components associated with signal processing circuitry (328) are selectively timed-shared with respect to signals associated with each of the gyroscope channels.