Interferometer with a fiber optic having a high PMD in coupled mode, fiber optic gyroscope (FOG), and inertial navigation system including such a gyroscope

摘要

Disclosed is a fiber optic interferometer including: a wideband optical source having a decoherence time τ_DC; a coil including N turns of a fiber optic with length L; an optical element separating the incident beam into first and second beams coupled to first and second ends of the fiber respectively, so the first beam travels through the fiber optic in a first direction and the second beam travels through the fiber optic in a counter propagating direction; and a detector detecting the intensity of the output beam. The fiber optic is a high polarization mode dispersion type, and the length L of the fiber optic coil is more than twice the fiber correlation length, so the fiber operates in a coupled PMD mode, and the propagation differential group delay between two orthogonal polarization states, accumulated over the length of the fiber, is greater than the decoherence time of the source.