Full investigation of the resonant frequency servo loop for resonator fiber-optic gyro

Resonator fiber-optic gyro (RFOG) is a high-accuracy inertial rotation sensor based on the Sagnac effect. A high-accuracy resonant frequency servo loop is indispensable for a high-performance RFOG. It is composed of a frequency discriminator, a loop filter, and a laser actuator. Influences of the loop parameters are fully developed. Optimized loop parameters are obtained by considering the noise reduction and wide dynamic performance of the RFOG. As a result, with the integration time of 10 s, the accuracy of the resonant frequency loop is increased to 0.02 Hz (1σ). It is equivalent to a rotation rate of 0.067°/h, which is close to the shot noise limit for the RFOG, while a minimum rotation of ±0.05°/s has been carried out simultaneously. These are the best results reported to date, to the best of our knowledge, for an RFOG using the miniature semiconductor laser that benefits from the optimization of the resonant frequency servo-loop parameters.