FOG fiber coil reliability assessment based on Bayesian estimation method

The fiber optic gyroscope has become to one of the most important sensors in developing due to light in quality, high accuracy, compact in dimension and long life[1-4]． These features have developed new applications of the gyroscope not only in conventional aerospace application area but also in industrial application area, such as control and navigations of unmanned vehicles, antenna/camera stabilizers, and so on. More and more FOGs have been applied in all kinds of satellites for attitude control. With the great technology progress on fiber optic gyroscopes in recent years, the reliability of fiber optic gyroscopes has been focused on. The fiber coil, as one of the most critical components in fiber optic gyroscope，its reliability directly determines the reliability of the fiber optic gyro. This paper uses the Bayesian estimation method to study the reliability of the fiber coil. Aiming fiber optic gyroscope fiber coil Failure Data Reliability analysis of the problem, on the basis of analyzing the failure mode, select Weibull distribution as its life mode, the estimated time of each detection without failure data using Bayesian theory failure rate, and thus the estimated model parameters fiber coil reliability. The Bayesian estimation method combined with experience information greatly reduces the number of test samples, and to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional reliability evaluation method relies on failure data, has a high value in engineering applications. This estimation method shows its significance in saving test costs and time.