Characterization of an open-loop interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope with the Sagnac coil closed by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier

This paper reports the performance of an open-loop interferometric fiber-optic gyroscope with an erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) that closes the sensing coil into a reentrant configuration. Preliminary results have shown a 6.56-fold increase in rotation response factor at a rate of 5/spl deg//s over a conventional gyroscope using the same fiber length and light source. The dynamic range is tunable by changing the gain of the EDFA.