Adaptive Modeling of Hysteretic Magnetometers

Magnetic hysteresis is one example of the nonlinearity that underpins many practical applications, particularly in the field of magnetic sensors such as fluxgate magnetometers. The aim of this paper is to present a behavioral model that is suitable for the circuital simulation of fluxgate magnetometers in standard simulators like Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE). The main advantage of the proposed methodology, vis-a-vis the traditional model, is the efficiency in predicting the behavior of amorphous materials with sharp hysteresis loops. Moreover, the developed model is easily implementable in any SPICE-like simulator and can be adopted for a wide range of operating conditions. The modeling strategy has been assessed by the comparison of predicted and observed behaviors of fluxgate magnetometers.