Miniaturized interferometric fiber optic gyroscope based on a novel Y-waveguide and photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

In this paper, we have designed and constructed a fully digital interferometric fiber optic gyroscope (IFOG) system. The design employs photonic crystal fiber and an optical integrated chip made using thin-film lithium niobate material. The optical integrated chip contains the optical path part of the fiber optic gyroscope, which makes the light source, detector, and Y-waveguide all integrated on the chip, effectively improving the system integration. In this paper, the performance of the prototype is tested and analyzed. The test result shows that the zero-bias stability reaches 0.19°/h after running for one hour. The scale factor nonlinearity is 79 ppm in the dynamic range from -25 °/s to 25 °/s. The IFOG with photonic crystal fiber and an optical integrated chip containing thin-film lithium niobate Y-waveguide has been successfully miniaturized and integrated, which has the potential for commercialization and popularization.