Navigation-grade interferometric air-core antiresonant fibre optic gyroscope with enhanced thermal stability
We present a groundbreaking navigation-grade interferometric air-core fibre optic gyroscope (IFOG) using a quadrupolar-wound coil of four-tube truncated double nested antiresonant nodeless fibre (tDNANF). This state-of-the-art tDNANF simultaneously achieves low loss, low bend loss, single-spatial-mode operation, and exceptional linear polarization purity over a broad wavelength range. Our 469 m tDNANF coil demonstrated a polarization extinction ratio (PER) of ~20 dB when illuminated by an amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) source spanning 1525-1565 nm. Under these conditions, the gyro archives an angular random walk (ARW) of 0.00383 deg h<sup>-1/2</sup> and a bias instability (BI) drift of 0.0017 deg h<sup>-1</sup>, marking the first instance of navigation-grade performance in air-core FOGs. Additionally, we validated the low thermal sensitivity of air-core FOGs, with reductions of 9.24/10.68/6.82 compared to that of conventional polarization-maintaining solid-core FOGs of the same size across various temperature ranges. These results represent a significant step towards long-standing promise of high-precision inertial navigation applications with superior environmental adaptability.
Authors
- Yizhi Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9782-5604)
- Maochun Li
- Hui Fei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0861-6021)
- Shoufei Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2514-7511)
- Hao Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2338-2159)
- Wei Ding (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1281-8670)
- Yingying Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4363-8779)
- Xiaoming Zhao
- Yan Miao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2210-5658)
- Qingbo Hu
- Helin Wu
- Wei Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7136-0140)
Institutions
- Jinan University (CN)
- Tianjin University (CN)
- Nantong University (CN)
- Nanjing University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Electronic Navigation Research Institute (JP)
- Nantong Science and Technology Bureau (CN)
- Peng Cheng Laboratory (CN)
- ZTT (China) (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-04-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58381-6
- Citations
- 20
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Fiber Optic Sensors
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 14.61
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province