Pulsed ring laser fiber gyro

摘要

An improvement for a ring laser gyro employs pulsed optical signals in a fiber optic loop. Clockwise and counterclockwise traveling pulsed optical signals are generated by a pair of optical amplifiers and a beamsplitter/coupler feeds the signals to a detector. The clockwise and counterclockwise signals do not meet in either of the optical amplifiers, but do arrive in coincidence at the beamsplitter and detector. Although low rotation rate lock-in limits the minimum detection rate in a continuous wave laser gyro, it does not so restrict the pulsed laser gyro's ability to detect low rotation rates because there is little, if any, coupling between the clockwise and counterclockwise modes of signal propagation.