Abstract
We present a new model of the noise and drift induced by coherent backscattering
in a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) interrogated with a light source of arbitrary
temporal coherence. This study is critical to understand whether a FOG driven
with a laser instead of a broadband source can attain high sensitivity and
stability, which would have the overwhelming benefit of improving the FOG
scale factor stability by at least ten-fold and would enable the use of FOGs
for inertial navigation of aircrafts. Analytical and numerical solutions bring
to light two significant new predictions. First, coherent-backscattering noise
can be made negligibly small by utilizing a laser with a very narrow linewidth
(less than ~20 kHz), although in this regime the drift is high.
Second, by using a laser with a broad linewidth (greater than ~10 MHz), both the noise and the
drift are low enough for aircraft inertial navigation. The dependencies of
the noise and drift on fiber loss, loop coupling coefficient, and backscattering
coefficient are also presented to define the optimum mode of operation of
this new class of FOGs.
© 2013 IEEE
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