Analysis and simulation for the thermal performance of the octupolar fiber coil

The thermal performance of the fiber coils wound by quadrupolar and octupolar methods is investigated and compared in temperature control conditions and variable temperature conditions. Simulation by finite difference time domain method is done to calculate the temperature distribution and the thermal-induced nonreciprocity phase shift in the fiber coils. Rate errors in interferometric fiber optic gyroscope (IFOG) with quadrupolar and octupolar coils are then obtained. Simulation results reveal that thermal-induced rate errors in the IFOG wound by octupolar method can be substantially reduced than that wound by quadrupolar method both in temperature control conditions and variable temperature conditions, which is meaningful in the application of octupolar-wound coil for high precision IFOG.