Design and Application of a Low Cost Helmholtz Coils for Magnetometer Calibration and Hardware-in-the-loop Simulations

Daniel Strufaldi Batista¹; Francisco Granziera Jr.¹; Gabriel Rezende Germanovix¹; Marcelo Carvalho Tosin¹

¹ State University of Londrina

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-2466

Resumo

This work presents the design and construction of a low cost three-axial Helmholtz coil developed to generate a uniform magnetic field. The coil was built using only non-magnetic materials and the design implemented was a rectangular Helmholtz coil formed by the junction of three pairs of single coils. It has approximately one cubic meter and it is capable of generating an 11 cm uniform cubic magnetic field around its center. The work presents concepts and theoretical fundaments involving Helmholtz theory, requirements and details of the low cost system developed. Results of the magnetic field obtained are presented and a discussion about the capability of the system is made. Finally the work also discuss two main applications in which this coil will be tested. One of the main application is to calibrate magnetic sensors, especially Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) magnetometers. The system will also be used to simulate Earth's magnetic field for hardware-in-the-loop simulations, being capable of simulating the field that a satellite will be exposed during its flight

Palavras-chave: Helmholtz Coil; Magnetic field; Magnetometer; Calibration; Hardware-in-the-loop