Tesseract – a high-stability, low-noise fluxgate sensor designed for constellation applications

IF 1.8 4区地球科学 Q3 GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Geoscientific Instrumentation Methods and Data Systems Pub Date : 2022-08-23 DOI:10.5194/gi-11-307-2022

K. Greene, C. Hansen, B. Narod, R. Dvorský, D. Miles

{"title":"Tesseract – a high-stability, low-noise fluxgate sensor designed for constellation applications","authors":"K. Greene, C. Hansen, B. Narod, R. Dvorský, D. Miles","doi":"10.5194/gi-11-307-2022","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract. Accurate high-precision magnetic field measurements are a\nsignificant challenge for many applications, including constellation missions studying space plasmas. Instrument stability and orthogonality are essential\nto enable meaningful comparison between disparate satellites in a\nconstellation without extensive cross-calibration efforts. Here we describe\nthe design and characterization of Tesseract – a fluxgate magnetometer\nsensor designed for low-noise, high-stability constellation applications.\nTesseract's design takes advantage of recent developments in the\nmanufacturing of custom low-noise fluxgate cores. Six of these custom racetrack fluxgate cores are securely and compactly mounted within a single\nsolid three-axis symmetric base. Tesseract's feedback windings are\nconfigured as a four-square Merritt coil to create a large homogenous\nmagnetic null inside the sensor where the fluxgate cores are held in a near-zero field, regardless of the ambient magnetic field, to improve the\nreliability of the core magnetization cycle. A Biot–Savart simulation is used to optimize the homogeneity of the field generated by the feedback Merritt\ncoils and was verified experimentally to be homogeneous within 0.42 % along the racetrack cores' axes. The thermal stability of the sensor's\nfeedback windings is measured using an insulated container filled with dry\nice inside a coil system. The sensitivity over temperature of the feedback\nwindings is found to be between 13 and 17 ppm ∘C−1. The sensor's three axes maintain orthogonality to within\nat most 0.015∘ over a temperature range of −45 to 20 ∘C. Tesseract's cores achieve a magnetic noise floor of 5 pT √Hz−1 at 1 Hz. Tesseract will be flight demonstrated on the\nACES-II sounding rockets, currently scheduled to launch in late 2022 and\nagain aboard the TRACERS satellite mission as part of the MAGIC technology\ndemonstration which is currently scheduled to launch in 2023.\n","PeriodicalId":48742,"journal":{"name":"Geoscientific Instrumentation Methods and Data Systems","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Geoscientific Instrumentation Methods and Data Systems","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-11-307-2022","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract. Accurate high-precision magnetic field measurements are a significant challenge for many applications, including constellation missions studying space plasmas. Instrument stability and orthogonality are essential to enable meaningful comparison between disparate satellites in a constellation without extensive cross-calibration efforts. Here we describe the design and characterization of Tesseract – a fluxgate magnetometer sensor designed for low-noise, high-stability constellation applications. Tesseract's design takes advantage of recent developments in the manufacturing of custom low-noise fluxgate cores. Six of these custom racetrack fluxgate cores are securely and compactly mounted within a single solid three-axis symmetric base. Tesseract's feedback windings are configured as a four-square Merritt coil to create a large homogenous magnetic null inside the sensor where the fluxgate cores are held in a near-zero field, regardless of the ambient magnetic field, to improve the reliability of the core magnetization cycle. A Biot–Savart simulation is used to optimize the homogeneity of the field generated by the feedback Merritt coils and was verified experimentally to be homogeneous within 0.42 % along the racetrack cores' axes. The thermal stability of the sensor's feedback windings is measured using an insulated container filled with dry ice inside a coil system. The sensitivity over temperature of the feedback windings is found to be between 13 and 17 ppm ∘C−1. The sensor's three axes maintain orthogonality to within at most 0.015∘ over a temperature range of −45 to 20 ∘C. Tesseract's cores achieve a magnetic noise floor of 5 pT √Hz−1 at 1 Hz. Tesseract will be flight demonstrated on the ACES-II sounding rockets, currently scheduled to launch in late 2022 and again aboard the TRACERS satellite mission as part of the MAGIC technology demonstration which is currently scheduled to launch in 2023.

查看原文本刊更多论文

Tesseract -一种高稳定性、低噪声磁通门传感器，专为星座应用设计

摘要精确的高精度磁场测量对许多应用来说都是一个重大挑战，包括研究空间等离子体的星座任务。仪器的稳定性和正交性是必不可少的，以便在不需要大量交叉校准的情况下对星座中的不同卫星进行有意义的比较。在这里，我们描述了Tesseract的设计和特性-一个磁通门磁强计传感器设计用于低噪声，高稳定性星座应用。Tesseract的设计利用了定制低噪声磁通门核心制造的最新发展。这些自定义赛道磁通门核心的六个是安全而紧凑地安装在一个单实体三轴对称的基础。Tesseract的反馈绕组配置为一个四平方梅里特线圈，在传感器内部创建一个大的均匀磁零，磁通门铁芯保持在接近零的磁场中，无论环境磁场如何，以提高铁芯磁化周期的可靠性。利用Biot-Savart模拟优化了反馈梅里特线圈产生的场的均匀性，实验验证了反馈梅里特线圈沿赛道芯轴方向的均匀性在0.42%以内。传感器反馈绕组的热稳定性是用线圈系统内填充干冰的绝缘容器来测量的。反馈线圈对温度的灵敏度在13到17 ppm (C−1)之间。在- 45到20°C的温度范围内，传感器的三个轴在最大0.015°内保持正交。Tesseract的核心在1hz时实现了5pt√Hz−1的磁底噪声。Tesseract将在aces - ii探空火箭上进行飞行演示，目前计划于2022年底发射，并再次在TRACERS卫星任务上进行飞行演示，作为MAGIC技术演示的一部分，目前计划于2023年发射。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Geoscientific Instrumentation Methods and Data Systems GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARYMETEOROLOGY-METEOROLOGY & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES

CiteScore

3.70

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

37 weeks

期刊介绍： Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems (GI) is an open-access interdisciplinary electronic journal for swift publication of original articles and short communications in the area of geoscientific instruments. It covers three main areas: (i) atmospheric and geospace sciences, (ii) earth science, and (iii) ocean science. A unique feature of the journal is the emphasis on synergy between science and technology that facilitates advances in GI. These advances include but are not limited to the following: concepts, design, and description of instrumentation and data systems; retrieval techniques of scientific products from measurements; calibration and data quality assessment; uncertainty in measurements; newly developed and planned research platforms and community instrumentation capabilities; major national and international field campaigns and observational research programs; new observational strategies to address societal needs in areas such as monitoring climate change and preventing natural disasters; networking of instruments for enhancing high temporal and spatial resolution of observations. GI has an innovative two-stage publication process involving the scientific discussion forum Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems Discussions (GID), which has been designed to do the following: foster scientific discussion; maximize the effectiveness and transparency of scientific quality assurance; enable rapid publication; make scientific publications freely accessible.