KVH Introduce DSP-1760 Multi-axis Fiber Optic Gyro

KVH Industries, Inc. has introduced a new multi-axis fiber optic gyro (FOG), the DSP-1760. The breakthrough design of the DSP-1760, which combines 1, 2, or 3 axes of the world’s smallest high-performance FOGs within an easy-to-integrate housing, provides both versatility and compact size. Depending on the application, the best-suited combination of axes is integrated within an environmentally sealed, lightweight enclosure, ensuring reliability and durability for any installation.

One of the many attractive features of the DSP-1760 is that it offers customers a choice of two interfaces, namely a 15-pin Micro-D connector or a 13-pin circular bayonet connector. The dual-interface capability creates a total of six product configurations, with each one aimed at addressing the individual end-user requirements.

“By making the DSP-1760 available in six different configurations, we are providing maximum versatility for the most challenging design projects,” says Jay Napoli, KVH’s vice president of FOG/OEM sales. “Customers are getting the high performance of the world’s smallest precision FOGs and the consistent quality of the optical fiber, which is manufactured by KVH. Other FOG manufacturers can’t match that kind of reliability.”

The DSP-1760 offers exceptional performance in bias stability, scale factor, and angle random walk. This high-bandwidth, extremely low-noise sensor uses KVH’s exclusive 170-micron E-Core ThinFiber, the world’s smallest D-shaped optical fiber. By reducing the overall diameter of the fiber to just 170 microns (a 30% reduction from KVH’s original E-Core polarization fiber), the resulting E-Core ThinFiber enables a greater length of fiber to be coiled in a fixed-size bobbin, thereby dramatically increasing the accuracy of the gyros.

With the DSP-1760′s versatile configurations and its exceptional performance, the product is ideal for a wide range of commercial applications, such as mining automation systems that require highly accurate navigation support; land, sea, or air manned and unmanned platforms; pipeline inspection robots that need sensors for precise location and identification internally to the pipe; and any other hazardous environments where the end-user requires extremely accurate angular data.

In addition, the DSP-1760 integrates magnetic shielding within the gyro housing, providing improved performance in systems with problematic magnetic environments, such as locations where there may be large motors or transformers in operation, or large commercial vehicles with high magnetic signatures.