Fiber optic gyroscopes having integrated power measurement capabilities
and related methods and apparatus. More particularly, fiber optic
gyroscopes having an integrated method for determining the optical power
by applying an electronic stimulated rate internal to the closed loop
digital electronics of the gyroscopes and monitoring the counts out per
second (COPS) using each gyroscope's counts output signal. Knowing a COPS
value, the optical power can be determined by dividing a constant K by
the COPS value, i.e. Optical Power=K/COPS. The value of K is specific to
each gyroscope, and can be calculated or measured.