ENERGY-EFFICIENT OPTIC GYROSCOPE DEVICES

摘要

Optical gyroscope devices and methods based on optical interferometric configurations to minimize optical loss and enhance the device energy efficiency. In one implementation, optical polarization control is provided in an optical gyroscope to reduce the optical loss in routing light to and from an optical ring that senses the rotation.

主权项

1. An optical gyroscope for sensing rotation experienced by an optical ring, comprising:
a first optical polarization selective device that receives input light in an input optical polarization to output as output light without significant loss; a polarization rotation device located to receive the output light from the first optical polarization device to rotate polarization of the received light by 45 degrees to produce polarization rotated light; a second optical polarization selective device located to receive the polarization rotated light from the polarization rotation device to split the polarization rotated light into a first optical beam in a first optical polarization and a second optical beam in a second optical polarization that is orthogonal to the first optical polarization; an optical ring loop coupled to the second optical polarization selective device to include a first fiber loop end to receive the first optical beam to propagate in the optical fiber loop in a first loop direction and a second fiber loop end to receive the second optical beam to propagate in the optical loop in a second loop direction opposite to the first loop direction, wherein the optical ring loop and the second optical polarization selective device are coupled to enable recombining the first and second optical beams from the optical ring loop after propagating through the optical ring loop as a returned beam carrying information indicating a rotation experienced by the optical ring loop and in a polarization that is the same as a polarization of the polarization rotated light to pass through the polarization rotation device to reach the first optical polarization selective device which directs the returned beam as an output beam without significant loss; an optical detector located to receive the output beam from the first optical polarization selective device and configured to produce a detector signal from the received output beam; and a processing device that receives and processes the detector signal to extract the rotation experienced by the optical ring loop.