The characterization of a fibre-optic gyroscope

Abstract

A fibre-optic gyroscope is an optoelectronic device that is mainly utilized to determine the angular motion and orientation of a rotating system. The principle of operation of this optical gyroscope is based on the Sagnac effect in which a phase difference proportional to the angular rate is produced between two counter-propagating beams. The main aim in this dissertation is that of characterizing one particular fibre-optic gyroscope model (which is a Fizoptika rotational sensor), where by means of different experiments its specific features can be established. An electrical assembly together with an experimental setup had to be constructed in order to operate the fibre-optic gyroscope and provide the rotational motion required. Moreover, the introduction of a lock-in amplifier in this electrical assembly turned out to be indispensable in retrieving the output signal emitted by the fibre-optic gyroscope especially in determining the different terms of the characteristic equation. The electrical components present in the fibre-optic gyroscope model were also tested and characterized in order to obtain their specific and individual characteristics. This was also done in order to obtain one of the essential identifications of an optical gyroscope which is that of the optical scale factor which determines the correlation between the Sagnac phase difference and the angular rate of the system.