Dynamic spatial measurements based on a bimorph artificial whisker and RTD-fluxgate magnetometer

This paper presents a strategy to measure static or quasi-static magnetic field by using a RTD-Fluxgate magnetometer and a bimorph artificial whisker used as actuator. The movable architecture of measurement has been conceived for localization of magnetic dipoles in an angular range of about 8° with a suitable sinusoidal voltage used to drive the bimorph material. In order to address this task first, we characterized the flexible bimorph actuator able to move the magnetic sensor, than we investigated the possibility to detect localized magnetic sources by using the performance of a novel configuration of flexible RTD-Fluxgate. The system has been analytically modeled and an experimental campaign, in order to demonstrate the proposed principle, has been performed obtaining very interesting results.