Application of finite element methods to the analysis of magnetic contamination around electronics in magnetic sensor devices

Abstract

The number of missions devoted to the measurement of the magnetic field has dramatically decreased since the 80s, being the decrease in number accompanied by a reduction in the mass and economic budget of many of the exploration missions. This scenario was the seed for a new generation of sensors: the Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) based microsensors. In the particular case of magnetometers, these miniaturized and compact devices imported a traditional problem of geomagnetic missions: the magnetic cleanliness trouble. Magnetic cleanliness, which is isolated in the platform when the magnetometer is deployed in a boom, becomes a real trouble when it has to be considered at Printed Circuit Board (PCB) level. In this work we present the description, method and results of a finite elements model for an engineering prototype of a NANOSAT-01 two axis magnetic sensor, launched in 2004. The idea is to extrapolate this method for all subsystems of a satellite.