A MULTICHANNEL MAGNETOMETER FOR FIELD STRUCTURE MEASUREMENT BASED ON TIME ENCODED FLUX-GATE SENSORS

Parallel and digital measurement of large spatial field distributions opens up new applications for magnetometers. A field of interest, e.g. , is the localization of magnetic sources by measuring the structure o f the magnetic field. The following article contains a description of a multi-channel magnetometer based on flux-gate sensors suitable for t his purpose. The underlying principle of this concept is the pulse pos ition principle offering a simple method for digitizing the measured m agnetic field strength. Without digital principles it would be very di fficult to construct a modular multi-channel magnetometer. The magneto meter currently uses 12 sensors. Thereby, it offers the possibility of 3D magnetic field measurement. Another aspect during the development was the aim to enable large sensor-array sizes. Measurement assemblies with array diameters of up to 6 m are tested. This article will also point out characteristic features of the new measuring instrument and present initial measurements.