Research and Compensation of Frequency Response of LiNbO3 Phase Modulator for High-Performance Fiber-Optic Gyroscope

A lithium niobate (LN) phase modulator is widely spread because ofhigh electro-optic coefficients. Particularly, it is a highly required component for a closed-loop fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) of navigation and tactical grade. However, low-frequency distortions of LN phase modulator frequency response can degrade the FOG performance. This paper deals with the research and compensation of frequency response of an LN phase modulator. It is a complex task to measure the response of the LN phase modulator in a FOG because of its Sagnac interferometer. Therefore, the special and novel modulation/demodulation algorithm is proposed. To the best of our knowledge and belief, the proposed method is the first published method that provides the measurement of the pulse response of a phase modulator as a part of a closed-loop FOG. The pulse response obtained in the proposed way allows getting appropriate high order transfer function of a phase modulator. For the first time to the best of our knowledge, the humidity dependence of the LN phase modulator frequency response is found. Influence of the phase modulator frequency response on FOG angular random walk, bias drift, and scale factor nonlinearity and instability is theoretically analyzed and mathematically simulated. The algorithmic method of the phase modulator response compensation is proposed and experimentally confirmed. The experimental results show that the proposed measurement technique of the phase modulator transfer function allows creating the compensating inverse filter that provides phase modulator response being close to flat. The application of the proposed method in the FOG operating mode allows reducing unwanted spikes to the noise level.