IFOG manufacturability and cost reduction

Summary form only given. Recent technical advances have demonstrated that fiber optic gyroscopes are viable for navigation applications. Due to the infancy of the manufacturing processes and low production volumes, they are yet to realize their full potential for low cost. The work reported here is being performed on a DARPA-funded program by a team consisting of several companies and members of academia led by Honeywell. This paper identifies an approach for cost reduction through several proven techniques such as design for manufacturability and the use of statistical tools in the improvement of manufacturing processes for components and the end-item.