1. Introduction
The Institute of Optoelectronics Technology (IOT) is an important part of Beihang University’s “Optical Engineering” discipline and the “Double First-Class” discipline of “Instrument Science and Technology”. It currently has 4 professional research topics such as fiber optic sensing, integrated optics, inertial navigation, and visual perception. IOT has undertaken and participated in the construction of nearly 10 national, provincial, ministerial-level, and school-enterprise joint laboratories and engineering centers, and has first-class optoelectronic laboratory conditions and complete research and production equipment for the study of optoelectronic devices and systems. It has undertaken a large number of major national-level engineering projects and basic research projects in key areas, showing stable project sources and sufficient scientific research funding. The IOT is a leading institution in the fields of optoelectronic devices, fiber optic gyroscopes and their inertial systems. The developed fiber optic gyroscopes and their inertial system products and the corresponding core technologies have been widely used in the fields of sea, land, air and space. Breakthroughs have been made in aerospace applications such as Mars exploration, lunar exploration and satellites.
The IOT has a high-level teaching and research team with a reasonable age structure and complementary research expertise, including 5 professors and over 10 associate professors named after talents of various types. More than 80% of them have overseas education and scientific research backgrounds. Thus, the teaching and research team is strong. It recruits about 50 full-time master's and doctoral students every year and conducts a certain scale of on-the-job engineering doctoral training. It insists on paying equal attention to theory and practice, taking into account that cutting-edge engineering, teaching and research complement each other.
2. History
The predecessor of the IOT was the Fiber Optic Gyroscope Research Group of Beihang University. Its origins can be traced back to the 1950s. To meet the urgent needs in the area of inertial navigation, Prof. Qian Xuesen proposed and Prof. Lin Shi'e created the first aviation gyro and inertial navigation disciplines in 1956. Since then, the gyro dream and gyro-inertial navigation talent cultivation have started for three generations at Beihang University. The first generation with the leader of Prof. Lin Shi'e, pioneered in the blank realizing my country's mechanical gyroscope from scratch; the second generation with the leader of Prof. Zhang Weixu, persevered in the face of difficulties and realized the leap from mechanical gyroscope to optical gyroscope; the third generation with the leader of prof. Zhang Chunxiand and prof. Song Ningfang led the team to seize opportunities and forge ahead to achieve rapid development, technology leadership and large-scale application of fiber optic gyroscopes. Furthermore, they have explored new research directions such as optical inertial measurement, novel optoelectronic devices, and quantum sensing. Three generations of Gyro people have formed the discipline's unique "Gyro spirit" of "Caring for the Motherland, Being Brave in Innovation, and Being Willing to Contribute".
3. Discipline Constructions
In terms of discipline construction, in response to the national aerospace strategic needs and international academic frontiers, the IOT has cultivated special discipline directions such as fiber optic gyroscopes and inertial systems, photonic crystal fibers, and micro-nano optoelectronic devices. In 2008, "Optical Engineering" was approved as the “First-level key discipline” by the Beijing Municipal Government.
Relying on the traditional discipline - fiber optic gyroscope technology, the team has persistently broken through the bottleneck of high-performance fiber optic gyroscopes, achieved independent control of the core technology, and developed a series of high-precision, high-dynamic, light and small fiber optic gyroscopes and systems. It has been successfully used in more than 80 aerospace missions such as "Mars Exploration" and relay satellites of the "Lunar Exploration Project". The IOT won 1 second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2019 and 2018. The IOT successfully developed a Φ135μm fine diameter low-loss radiation-resistant photonic crystal fiber, realizing the first space application in the world.
The fiber optic gyroscope team has won numerous honors such as the “Beihang Blue Sky Innovation Team”, the Ministry of Science and Technology's "Innovation Team in Key Areas of the Innovative Talent Promotion Plan", and the Natural Science Foundation of China Innovation Group for "Advanced Inertial Instruments and System Technology".
Focusing on the research of the new generation of optical gyroscopes, the IOT plays full use of the strong faculty and solid foundation in the field of inertial navigation, closely integrated with engineering needs, theoretical teaching, and innovative practice to enhance the influence of “Optical Engineering” discipline both in domestic and abroad.
4. Staff
The IOT currently has 25 permanent teachers with profound research and engineering application backgrounds in optics, instrumentation, electronics and automation, including 5 professors, 11 associate professors and 8 doctoral supervisors. The teaching team includes 1 Yangtze River Scholar, 2 973 chief experts, 2 863- and pre-research experts, 1 young talent under the Ten Thousand Talents Program, 1 national-level overseas outstanding youth, and 6 national-level science and technology award winners. , 1 JS Youth Promoted Talent, 1 Beijing Youth Talent, 1 Beijing Association for Science and Technology Outstanding Young Engineer, 1 Beijing Science and Technology Rising Star, 4 Beihang Top Young Talents, and 6 Beihang University's "Excellent Hundreds" Young Talent Introduction Program.
The teaching, scientific research and engineering teams of the IOT are composed of three generations of teachers aging from the old, and middle-aged to the young, showing a reasonable talent structure. Since the establishment of IOT, it has won the "National May 1st Labor Award", "National Civilized Women's Post", "Advanced Unit Undertaking the National High-tech Research and Development Program", "Advanced Collective with Outstanding Contributions to the National High-tech Research and Development Program" and "Excellent Implementation of the National Science and Technology Plan" Team Award" and many other honorable titles.
5. Teaching
The purpose of this major is to cultivate high-level leaders and leading talents with a sense of serving the country, strong professional skills, and outstanding innovation capabilities. By building professional course internships and practice bases, we will develop undergraduate general education, master's degree specialization, and Doctoral academic training systems.
The main courses provided for this major are illustrated in the following: Weak Signal Detection and Processing, Digital Signal Processing Principles and Applications, Optoelectronic Testing Technology and Instruments, Inertial Device Principles and Testing Technology, Optical Communication Principles and Technology, Optical Fiber Optics, Optoelectronics Theory, and Interference Measurement Technology, Experiments on Optoelectronic Instruments and Measurement, Optical Inertial Measurement and Navigation Systems, etc.
During the teaching work, we also pay attention to the cultivation of the spirit of serving the country, and always regard it as our glorious responsibility and mission to provide outstanding graduates to the industry, and actively guide graduates to make contributions to the places where the motherland needs them most. The employment rate of graduates in the national research institutions in the past five years has reached 63.2%. In addition to full-time teaching work, the IOT has also paid attention to the "industry-university-research" cooperation with more than 10 research institutes, enterprises, and companies affiliated with the AVIC Group to jointly cultivate high-level outstanding engineers.
6. Research
The scientific research carried out by the IOT is always oriented to solve the technology problems to meet the needs of the country. It consolidates the traditional advantages and distinctive subject directions such as fiber optic gyroscopes, inertial navigation, and optical sensing maintaining domestic leadership and international first-class level; aiming at cutting-edge science and technology, develops cutting-edge basic disciplines such as integrated optics, visual perception, and quantum sensing, and carry out international cutting-edge theoretical and technological research to deepen international cooperation and continue to produce high-quality original academic results; adhere to independent innovation, promotes fiber optic gyroscopes as the representative mature technologies and products to play a key role in major aerospace engineering projects and realize the transformation of research results, generating significant social and economic benefits.
At present, the main research areas formed by the IOT include:
(1) Optical Sensing and Quantum Sensing
(2) Micro-nano Photonic Devices and Integrated Optics
(3) Inertial Measurement and Integrated Navigation
(4) Visual Perception and Image Processing
In the past 20 years, the IOT has received funding support from the National 973 and 863 Programs, National Major Instrument Projects, National Natural Funds, model product development, industry-university-research cooperation, condition construction, and discipline construction, with a cumulative funding of more than 500 million Yuan. Published more than 300 academic papers in authoritative domestic and foreign journals in the related fields (such as Science Advances, Physical Review Letters, Laser & Photonics Reviews, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, Optics Letters, Optics Express, etc.) and top academic conferences. At the same time, the IOT has published and compiled more than 10 textbooks, monographs, national and industry standards, and nearly 200 authorized patents.
7. Laboratory
The IOT has received support for the construction of fiber optic gyroscope conditions of 45 million Yuan and the construction of optical engineering disciplines of about 10 million Yuan. It has established complete optical design and measurement, circuit design and analysis, system simulation, and environmental experimental conditions. The IOT has established a 2,000-square-meter fiber optic gyroscope engineering pilot base and a 4,300-square-meter Beihang-AVIC JieRui graduate professional internship base and has jointly established laboratories and engineering bases with aviation, aerospace, weapons and other research institutes. The IOT is the core strength and important component of the "Inertial Technology" National Science and Technology Key Laboratory, the "New Inertial Instrument Technology" National Key Discipline Laboratory, and the "Precision Optomechanical and Electrical Integration Technology" Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education. The above-mentioned laboratory conditions provide guarantee and support for the IOT to carry out high-level teaching, scientific research and the development of engineering products.
8. Research Output
(1) Fiber Optic Gyroscope and its Applications
Fiber optic gyroscope is an optical angular velocity sensor based on the Sagnac effect. It has the advantages of high theoretical accuracy, high reliability, and long lifetime. It has become a popular device choice for navigation and attitude control in various vehicles, such as satellites, rockets, aircraft, ships, and missiles.. With the support and traction of major national research programs and engineering models, the IOT has pioneered domestic theoretical research on digital closed-loop fiber optic gyroscopes and photonic crystal fiber optic gyroscopes, establishing the complete fiber optic gyroscope technology system, device system, and production process system, and the developed fiber optic gyroscope products are used in many national strategic weapon systems and major aerospace engineering models. For example, the series of aerospace fiber optic gyro products have been used in more than 80 satellites and spacecraft such as the lunar exploration project "Queqiao Relay Satellite", "Zhuhai No. 1 Constellation", "Future Navigation Constellation", and "Global Multimedia Constellation" , in May 2021, two sets of fiber optic gyroscope products were used on the lander and rover of the "Tianwen-1" Mars exploration mission, providing high-precision and highly reliable position and attitude information guarantee, helping my country's first Mars exploration mission to be a complete success.
(a) Fiber optic gyroscope products and satellite applications; (b) “ZhuRong” Mars rover and lander
(2) Novel Photonic Crystal Fiber and Gyroscope
Photonic crystal fiber is the best choice for the new generation of fiber optic gyroscopes due to its excellent environmental stability. The IOT is the first institue in China to carry out research on photonic crystal fiber optic gyroscope technology. The high-precision, lightweight, and radiation-resistant fiber optic gyroscope based on photonic crystal fiber has reached an accuracy of 0.001º/h, and successfully completed the "Tianzhou 1 and 5" missions. The cargo spacecraft and the "Shijian 20" satellite were carried on flight tests. In December 2020, they were successfully used for the main closed-loop control of the "New Technology Demonstration 7" satellite. It was the first international space application of this type of gyroscope.
(a) Photonic crystal fiber and gyroscope; (b) “Tianzhou 1 and 5” cargo spacecraft;
(c) Cargo spacecraft test unit.
(3) Cold Atom Quantum Inertial Sensing based on Hollow-Core Fiber
Hollow-core optical fiber has a hollow structure, which can guide laser and matter at the same time, achieving efficient light-matter interaction. Cold atom quantum inertial sensing based on hollow-core optical fibers uses hollow-core optical fibers to guide far-detuned light fields to generate optical dipole potential wells, confining cold atoms in a hollow fiber core of tens of microns, and can construct a quasi-one-dimensional light-guided cold atom interferometer achieves ultra-high sensitivity measurement of inertial quantities. The research team conducts research on the decoherence mechanism of light-guided cold atom interferometers, atom cooling in hollow-core optical fibers, coherent manipulation and detection technology, and is expected to realize a high-precision, vector, and miniaturized light-guided cold atom gravimeter and accelerometer.
(4) Neuromorphic Visual Perception and Visual Navigation
Neuromorphic vision differs from traditional global exposure imaging methods in that it encodes relative changes in light intensity into sparse, asynchronous events and has the significant advantages of high speed, high dynamics and low power consumption. It is especially suitable for application scenarios with strict time resolution requirements such as navigation and high-speed imaging. Based on the research and development of neuromorphic vision sensor chips (a-b), the research team developed AER data processing hardware and neuromorphic vision sensors (c). At the same time, based on this hardware, a neuromorphic-based visual navigation system (d-e) was designed and developed, which can be used for tasks such as target detection and pose estimation. A vibration frequency visual measurement system (f) was designed and developed, which can measure the vibration frequency of 10 μm amplitude under extreme lighting conditions.
(a-c) Neuromorphic vision modeling, chips and sensors; (d) Target detection based on event flow; (e) Neuromorphic visual navigation system; (f) Vibration frequency visual measurement system.
(5) Micro-nano Photonic Devices and Integrated Optics
The Micro-Nano Photonic Devices and Integrated Optics Group is committed to the research on the intrinsic physical properties of advanced semiconductor materials and their applications in the field of micro-nano photonics and optoelectronic devices. Currently, the group devotes to the research in the field of on-chip light sources, graphene sensors, on-chip all-optical calculators, and Si-based waveguides. We have achieved a number of research results in the fields of devices and integrated optical gyroscopes, and published dozens of original results in top journals in the field of photonics such as Science Advances, Laser & Photonics Reviews, and Photonics Research. At the same time, the group is also devoted to the research of Micro-nano Fabrication Processes and Integration Technologies to achieve highly integrated on-chip optical gyroscopes.
(a-c) Micro- and nano-photonic Devices: On-chip nonlinear laser sources, graphene sensor and all-optical logic gates; (d) Integrated optical gyroscope based on the waveguide technology.
