Product category:
Hydrometry, Environment and Floods
News Release from: Fluxgate World
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 18 April 2008
Fluxgate magnetometry helps industrial
sensors
Research and development effort from Fluxgate World has used the reliability and robustness of fluxgates to provide sensors for use in industrial, environmental, hydrometry and many other markets
Fluxgate World introduced its industrial sensing and measurement sub-systems just three years ago at MTEC 2005 The 'first generation' products shown then - the rotary encoder and inclinometer - were derived directly from the marine navigation compass components in which its parent company Autonnic is a world leader
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 3 Feb 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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New, ready-to-use, instrumentation products
For the first time, Fluxgate World introduced complete, ready-to-use, PC-based instruments in addition to its established range of sensors for OEM integration, at MTEC2008 in Birmingham
As well as seeking new applications and new classes of product, the Fluxgate World research and development effort has been aimed at increasing sensitivity whilst maintaining the reliability and robustness that give fluxgates their appeal in industrial, automotive, environmental and many other market sectors.
Its Force Vector Module, the basis for its wind speed and direction indicator unit and the building airflow monitor that was on show at MTEC 2008, uses a fundamental development of fluxgate magnetometry (the patented third axis addition).
Yet translating this innovative extension of the technology into a reliable, practical device has demanded intensive design and development.
Managing director, Chris Shelton, explains that this development programme called for further ingenuity that has also opened up new areas of application: "In developing our force vector sensing to give reliable performance for marine wind speed and direction, we felt that the resolution we could achieve wasn't quite good enough.
The innovative solution we adopted then gave us several orders of magnitude of resolution better than we needed in that application".
The solution adopted involves a new approach to the analogue, front-end signal processing circuitry which achieves a substantial improvement in signal-to-noise.
Not only has this made the force vector sensing of wind, tidal and river flows and small air currents completely reliable and accurate but also has allowed the development of both the low-cost, sensitive magnetometer and the high-resolution inclinometer launched at MTEC 2008.
Coupled with the Fluxgate World continuing development programme it will also open the way for further innovative products from the company.
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