Development issues for automating quadrupole-pattern optical-fiber coil-winding for fiber-optic gyro manufacture

This work addresses development of winding technique and technology, to automate winding of optical fiber in a quadrupole pattern, for interferometric fiber-optic gyros (IFOG's). An emphasis of this work is developing winding processes that can proceed under tension, stably, without hands-on manual efforts. A quadrupole winding pattern requires handling two supply spools and one product spool; the supply spools takes turn being active, and tension control must be maintained during changes of spools. Typical coil-winding machinery has significant elasticity, backlash, and inertia. Another emphasis of this work is the development of winding-machine-specific controls, capable of maintaining controlled tension, at all times, and for any winding-machine dynamics.<
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