Exploiting nonlinear dynamics in a coupled-core fluxgate magnetometer

Unforced bistable dynamical systems having dynamics of the general form tau(F)(x) over dot(t) = -del(x)U(x) cannot oscillate (i.e. switch between their stable attractors). However, a number of such systems subject to carefully crafted coupling schemes have been shown to exhibit oscillatory behavior under carefully chosen operating conditions. This behavior, in turn, affords a new mechanism for the detection and quantification of target signals having magnitude far smaller than the energy barrier height in the potential energy function U(x) for a single (uncoupled) element. The coupling-induced oscillations are a feature that appears to be universal in systems described by bi-or multi-stable potential energy functions U(x), and are being exploited in a new class of dynamical sensors being developed by us. In this work we describe one of these devices, a coupled-core fluxgate magnetometer (CCFM), whose operation is underpinned by this dynamic behavior. We provide an overview of the underlying dynamics and, also, quantify the performance of our test device; in particular, we provide a quantitative performance comparison to a conventional (single-core) fluxgate magnetometer via a 'resolution' parameter that embodies the device sensitivity (the slope of its input-output transfer characteristic) as well as the noise floor.