A SFTD Algorithm for Optimizing the Performance of the Readout Strategy of Residence Time Difference Fluxgate

Area of Science:

• Physics
• Electrical Engineering
• Sensor Technology

Background:

• Residence time difference (RTD) fluxgate sensors offer potential for DC and low-frequency magnetic field measurement in the time domain.
• Jitter and magnetic noise significantly degrade the performance and accuracy of RTD fluxgate systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel post-processing algorithm for reducing jitter noise in RTD fluxgate sensor outputs.
• To enhance the performance and reliability of RTD fluxgate systems for magnetic field detection.

Main Methods:

• A single-frequency time difference (SFTD) method is employed for jitter noise reduction.
• Time-frequency transformation is utilized to extract a fixed-frequency signal while preserving its time-domain information.
• The proposed algorithm processes the RTD fluxgate output to yield a jitter-free signal containing ambient field information.

Main Results:

• The novel algorithm significantly improves the stability of RTD estimation, enhancing the signal-to-noise ratio.
• A sensitivity of 4.3 μs/nT was achieved, demonstrating improved performance over the traditional comparator RTD method (CRTD).
• Experimental results indicate that the noise floor of the RTD fluxgate sensor is comparable to that of harmonic fluxgate sensors.

Conclusions:

• The proposed SFTD-based post-processing algorithm effectively reduces jitter noise in RTD fluxgate sensors.
• This advancement leads to significantly improved magnetic field detection accuracy and sensor stability.
• The RTD fluxgate sensor, with this noise reduction strategy, demonstrates performance competitive with established harmonic fluxgate technologies.