gyrocompassing

gyrocompassing

[′jī·rō‚käm·pəs·iŋ] (navigation) In inertial navigation equipment, a process of self-alignment in azimuth accomplished without any external equipment, consisting basically of using the inertial platform's accelerometers to slave it to the local gravity vector, and employing one of the gyros to seek true north by sensing the rotation of the earth in the manner of a gyro compass.