IEEE Photonics Journal (Jan 2014)

All-Depolarized Interferometric Fiber-Optic Gyroscope Based on Optical Compensation

  • Zinan Wang,
  • Yi Yang,
  • Ping Lu,
  • Yongxiao Li,
  • Dayu Zhao,
  • Chao Peng,
  • Zhenrong Zhang,
  • Zhengbin Li

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOT.2014.2299212
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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We propose and demonstrate a novel configuration for depolarized interferometric fiber-optic gyroscopes (IFOGs). This configuration utilizes optical compensation between two orthogonal polarizations for suppressing errors induced by polarization nonreciprocity. Theoretical analysis shows that it is a new approach different from conventional IFOGs where a polarizer is mandatory. An experimental demonstration of the proposed IFOG (2097-m coil, open-loop configuration) achieves a low bias drift of 0.016 °/h in detecting the Earth's rotation rate. Furthermore, this configuration requires no polarizer or any other polarization-maintaining device.

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