The fiber optic gyro 'adventure' at Photonetics, iXsea and now iXblue
Hervé C. Lefèvre, Adrien Steib, Alain Claire, Alex Sekeriyan, André Couderette, Anne-Laure Pointel, Annie Viltard, Antoine Bonnet, Arnaud Frénois, Arnaud Gandoin, Laurent Arnaud, Augustin Luton, Aurélie Galbès, Aurore Escarnot, Benoît Cadier, Benoît Kerouanton, Bertrand Lhermitte, Brigitte Bonnafé, Carine Stuber, Carmen Ortiz, C. Molucon, Chantal Allano, Charles Dunette, Christophe Ollivier, Clément Guyot, Clément Vercambre, Damien Ponceau, D. Ramecourt, Elliot de Toldi, Emmanuelle Peter, E. Ducloux, E. Vassilakis, Fabien Colliou, Fabien Napolitano, Florence Lauvinerie, Frédéric Guattari, Gaëtan Fauquert, Gilles Mélin, Guillaume Hardy, G. Lecamp, H. Porte, Hervé Jaheny, Hugo Boiron, Jean-Jacques Bonnefois, Jean-Philippe Michel, Jean-Philippe Périot, Jérémie Pillon, Jérôme Hauden, Joachin Honthaas, Karl Aubry, Kévin Gauthier, Laurent Lablonde, Laurent Ly, Louis Lhomme, Luc Poulain, Marc Girault, Marco Mancini, Marie Goudron, Marie-Lise Duplaquet, Marilyne Bernasconi, Matthieu Collignon, Matthieu Dacheux, M. Rattier, Miguel Marta, Nicolas Faussot, N. Grossard, Nicolas Pirrone, Olivier Jolly, Olivier Rabine, Pascal Guitton, P. Mollier, Pascal Simonpiétri, Pierre Buisson, P. Cheiney, Priyoshi Chakma, R. Taïbi, R. Blondeau, Saloomeh Shariati, Sébastien Boisgontier, Sébastien Ferrand, Sébastien Keller, Sophie Huet, Stéphane Chouvin, Stéphane Meyer, Stéphane Puille, S. Ustaze, Sylvain Bénard, Sylvain Clémenceau, Théo Laudat, Thérèse Guettler-Sergeant, Thibault Dos Santos, Thidakun Peou-Sanson, Thierry Robin, Thomas Buret, Thomas Loret, T. Villedieu, Valérie Ferreira, Van Dong Pham, Victor Rumoroso, Yves Paturel
Abstract
Based on the experience acquired early from pioneering work at Stanford University and Thomson-CSF starting in the mid 70s, fiber optic gyro (FOG) R&D began at Photonetics in the late 80s to yield OCTANS, a FOG-based inertial strapdown system providing attitude and gyro compassing, at the end of the 90s. This FOG activity was spun out from Photonetics in October 2000 to create iXsea with only 16 people. The product line was rapidly expanded with PHINS, an inertial-grade INS (Inertial Navigation System) and later with MARINS, a strategic-grade INS, as well as with ASTRIX systems developed for satellites in cooperation with EADS-Astrium (today Airbus Defence & Space). In 2010, iXsea merged with several subsidiaries of its parent company, iXcore, to create iXblue. Among these subsidiaries were iXfiber, a maker of specialty fibers, and Photline, producing lithium-niobate integrated optics, hence allowing iXblue to fully master the key FOG components supply chain. Ten years later, the ‘adventure' is continuing and the former start-up is now quite a significant player in the inertial world, especially for high-grade applications. The cumulated number of high-performance 3-axis systems in service has grown to over 8,000, i.e. more than 25,000 FOG axes, with a bias stability ranging from 30 mdeg/h down to 15 μdeg/h, and an angular random walk (ARW) performance ranging from 8 mdeg/√h down to 40 μdeg/√h depending on the size of their sensing coils (3 m<sup>2</sup> to 1000 m<sup>2</sup>) and on the application!