Performance Of Fiber Optic Gyroscope Research Articles

Accurate measurement and enhancement of fiber coil symmetry.

The pure Shupe effect is substantially reduced in a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) with symmetrical windings. However, the effect of the temperature-induced nonuniformity of the stress in the coil depends on the mean temperature derivative (T-dot). Research on precision winding technology has discovered that the symmetry of optical fiber rings affects the temperature performance of fiber optic gyroscopes. Optical fiber rings with good symmetry also have good temperature performance. This paper first establishes a temperature drift model of optical fiber rings that includes the Shupe effect and T-dot effect and then uses finite element simulation to analyze the drift error of optical fiber rings in a variable temperature environment. Analysis shows that this drift is caused by the variation and uneven distribution of the fiber length and the refractive index in the positive and negative winding of the optical fiber ring, which results in a residual phase difference that is directly related to the symmetry of the optical fiber ring. Simulation and analysis show that balancing the residual phase difference of the optical fiber ring can be achieved by cutting the length of the optical fiber ring at both ends. This paper uses optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) technology to precisely test the symmetry of the optical fiber ring, ensuring accurate adjustment of the lengths at both ends of the optical fiber ring. Experimental tests on two gyroscopes have shown that the optical fiber ring with a smaller drift error can be obtained after testing and adjusting its length. The experimental data indicates that the bias stability of two laboratory gyros are increased by 23.6% and 18.1%, and the bias range are reduced by 22.4% and 30.0%.

An improved measurement system for FOG pure lag time with no changing of FOG work status

The minimum pure lag time is an important factor for characterizing the dynamic performance of fiber optical gyroscope. It is defined as the time duration from the reception of velocity-shock signal to the output of corresponding fiber-optic gyroscope data. Many engineering projects have required for this index specifically, so the measurement of the minimum pure lag time is highly demanded. In typically measurement system, the work status of tested FOG has to be changed. In this work, a FOG pure lag time measurement system without changing the work status of the FOG has been demonstrated. During the operation of this test system, the impact structure generated a shock towards the FOG, and the pure lag time was measured through data processing analysis. The design scheme and test principle have been researched and analyzed in detail. And a prototype has been developed and used for experiment successfully. This measurement system can realize a measurement accuracy of better than ±3 μs and a system resolution of 108.6ns.

Enhanced environmental performance of fiber optic gyroscope by an adhesive potting technology

An adhesive potting technology for fiber coils of a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) is proposed. The fiber coil is immersed in liquid adhesive with superior mechanical properties. The internal air is first removed completely by vacuum pumping, and the adhesive is then evenly pressed into the fiber coil under pressure. The potted fiber core is prepared by ladder-type temperature curing and a stress-release process. With this potting technology, the vibration performance of an FOG is greatly improved and, at the same time, will not lead to degradation of its temperature performance. Using this potting technique of adhesive impregnation, the adaptability of FOGs will be enhanced.

The Compensation of Y Waveguide Temperature Drifts in FOG with the Thermal Resistor

The lithium niobate integrated optical phase modulator (Y waveguide) is the key device in the digital closed-loop fiber optic gyroscope. However, the half-wave voltage of the lithium niobate changes with the environment temperature, which produces the phase bias drift and ultimately decreases the accuracy of FOG. In this manuscript, the thermal resistor is introduced in the amplification part in the driving circuits of Y waveguide. Due to the characteristic of the thermal resistor, the magnitude of driving voltage on Y waveguide changed with temperature to compensate the electro-optic effects temperature drift of the lithium niobate. This method was proved to improve the performance of fiber optic gyroscopes conveniently in experiment.

Modeling of Thermal-Induced Rate Error for FOG With Temperature Ranging From -40 °C to 60 °C

The performance of fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) exhibits temperature dependence due to nonreciprocity phase shift in the fiber coil induced by environmental temperature variation. Research on temperature characteristic is meaningful for high precision FOG working in harsh environment. In this letter, modeling of thermal-induced rate error for FOG with environmental temperature ranging from -40°C to 60 °C is investigated. Temperature dependence of fiber refractive index, thermal expansion of the fiber, and thermal stress of the fiber coating are all considered in our model. Experiments with different temperature change rates between -40°C and 60 °C are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. Experimental results show great agreement with theoretical values.

Analysis of sensing coil polarization properties’ effect on performance of fiber optical gyroscope

The mechanism of fiber coil polarization properties' effect on the performance of a fiber optical gyroscope (FOG) is investigated with analysis of secondary wave trains' polarization evolution and interference in the fiber coil. Based on the optical model, the simulation demonstrates that the bias error varies nonlinearly with the fiber coil polarization crosstalk, and the experiment verifies the analysis and simulation result, so some measures are promoted to reduce the bias' dependence on the fiber coil's polarization properties, which is significant for improving environmental adaptability and long-term stability of the FOG.

A New Dynamic Test Method of Fiber Optic Gyroscope

The sway motion of ships follows sine law. Therefore, it needs high dynamic performance of fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) to meet the serious working environment. A new test method was introduced to make reasonable assessment on the dynamic performance of FOG. The principle of this new test method was that the sine wave provided by the IP core in FPGA was superimposed on the digital ladder to simulate the input signal of sway motion. It could be proved that the serial of sine signal, which was generated by this method, was equivalent to the external input signal. Moreover, the dynamic error model of FOG was established to provide the theory of dynamic test. The results of dynamic test of FOG indicated that the dynamic error did not have divergent trends, the system parameters set was reasonable and the FOG system was stable. It also can be seen that dynamic error of FOG was increased with the increasing of sine wave amplitude, which was accord with the actual situation. The new dynamic test method of FOG was verified.

Nonlinear empirical mode predictive drift extraction on fiber optical gyroscope

The integration drift of inertial unit is a fatal error on navigation and attitude determination system. Many approaches have been developed to extract and eliminate it. A novel fiber optical gyroscope drift extraction algorithm was proposed in this paper to ameliorate the performance of fiber optical gyroscope by extracting the trend component as the compensation. In this algorithm, the attitude quaternion of stellar sensor and the output of fiber optical gyroscope were imported into a nonlinear empirical mode predictive algorithm to extract the drift component of gyroscope. Combing the advantages of predictive filter and empirical mode decomposition in nonlinear signal processing, our proposal is more precise in drift extraction and data approximation. Software simulation and hardware verifications on gyroscope were launched, in which the results had proven the capability of the algorithm.

Flattening Spectrum of a Broadband and Wavelength Stable Erbium Doped Superfluorescent Fiber Source

A technique is used to design the spectra in erbium doped superfluorescent fiber source experimentally and theoretically. In an erbium doped fiber with a 10 m length and 300 ppm concentration, a line width of about 42 nm and high mean wavelength stability (<0.1ppm/K, <0.2ppm/mW) were obtained by means of a suitable population distribution, and adjusting the ratio of backward to forward pump power. Also, its thermal characteristic is studied. These results will improve the performance of fiber optical gyroscope and fiber sensors, and will be applied in erbium doped fiber amplifier with flattening gain.