Self-contained portable remote-indicating magnetic compass was designed and tested. Its sensing part consists of main scale disk of rotary encoder with photo-etched 180, oopaque slits and three pairs of light sources and detectors seperated by a transparent index scale, so that any angular deflection of main scale disk against the bowl may be detected optically. The outputs from the sensing part are transformed into digital ship's course indication by electronics unit which consists of operational amplifier, phase discriminator, up-down counter and counting starter circuit. The results from testign the above compass with turntable at variable rate of turn are as following : 1) The main scale disk deflection against the bowl can be detected without any disturbing influence to the freedom of its north-seeking function. 2) The digital indication resolution is found to be ˚ ±1 degree. 3) Misrepresenting indication can be avoided by ensuring dimension uniformity and arrangement accuracy of slits on main and index scale disks and by centering pivot in the encoder disk. 4) Indication resolution should be improved by modifying the signal processing and by doubling the number of slits on compass card. 5) Further study should be made on developing non-conductive compass liquid, analogue repeater driving system and more compact processing element.

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