Digital signal processing for an open-loop fiber-optic gyroscope

Open-loop fiber-optic gyroscopes (FOG's) are generally less stable than closed-loop FOG's, yet they offer simpler implementation. We propose a modification of the harmonic division algorithm for an open-loop FOG, which is more stable and also simpler for implementation than the original one. It is shown that when the analog signal is properly sampled and quantized, the performance of our algorithm reaches that of closed-loop FOG's. Our algorithm may be implemented by the use of off-the-shelf component, and does not require an integrated optics circuit.