Commercially available gyroscopes can give false readings when temperature or pressure fluctuations occur. However, even the most precise instruments available on the market today are limited by external forces. What limits many commercial-grade gyroscopes are temperature or pressure fluctuations, which give false readings. We work with an atom in a vacuum system, and it just doesn't see gradients in temperature or atmospheric pressure. His gyroscopes substitute the spinning disk with a split stream of atoms traveling in a closed pattern.
Detectors measure that difference to indicate the turning rate of the craft.
Atomic interferometry gyroscopes can detect more gradual changes of angle, too. Kasevich recently used his atomic gyro to measure the angular displacement of his laboratory building related to the rotation of the Earth. At the Speed of Light Ground tremors shake the platform of the accelerometer in a mechanical seismograph, but inertia keeps a hanging mass in place while the spring it's attached to stretches and pivots on a hinge, as seen at the left. Magnetic fields and other forces can interfere with the accuracy of data from such an instrument. Atom interferometry also can make accelerometers much more precise.