Patent ID: 8781778

Claim:
A method for producing bias compensated angular rate measurements from a ring laser gyroscope, the method comprising: sampling an angle measurement output from a laser block sensor to obtain an angular rate measurement; obtaining an laser block temperature measurement (T block ) for the laser block sensor; obtaining a temperature gradient measurement (T diff ) for at least one gradient line across a portion of the laser block sensor; calculating a rate bias error using a processor by applying parameters produced from the temperature measurement (T block ) and the temperature gradient measurement (T diff )to a thermal gradient compensation model, wherein the thermal gradient compensation model includes at least one coefficient corresponding to the temperature gradient measurement (T diff ); and calculating a difference between the angle rate measurement and the rate bias error using a processor to produce a bias compensated angular rate measurement; wherein the thermal gradient compensation model includes at least: a first coefficient K 1 corresponding to an offset; a second coefficient K 2 corresponding to the laser block temperature measurement, T block ; a third coefficient K 3 corresponding to T block 2 ; a fourth coefficient K 4 corresponding to a time derivative, dT block /dt; a fifth coefficient K 5 corresponding to the product of T block ×(dT block /dt); a sixth coefficient K 6 corresponding to the temperature gradient measurement (T diff ); and wherein the rate bias error =f(K 1 , K 2 ×T block , K 3 ×T block 2 , K 4 ×(dT block /dt), K 5 ×T block ×(dT block /dt), K 6 ×T diff ).