Theoretical study of the lock-in in pulsed laser gyroscopes

Abstract

The problem of lock-in in a pulsed laser gyroscope, which may be a new kind of rotation sensor, is studied theoretically. Using a new method, we derive a generalized expression for the lock-in rotation rate, which can be applied to both conventional continuous wave and solid-state pulsed laser gyroscopes. A Gaussian pulse, secant hyperbolic pulse, and super-Gaussian pulse are taken as examples for numerical calculation of the pulsed laser gyroscope lock-in rotation rate; the results indicate that a super-Gaussian pulse is more suitable than the other two. For a super-Gaussian pulsed laser gyroscope, the dead band disappears when the distance between the scatter element and the crossover point exceeds the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the pulse, whereas for the secant hyperbolic pulse type the distance must be about 4.5 times greater than the FWHM.