RESEARCH ARTICLE | JANUARY 07 2021

An out-of-plane sensing fluxgate magnetic field sensor with

an assisted flux conductor
Ping-Hsun Hsieh ; Shih-Jui Chen 

AIP Advances 11, 015217 (2021)

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0026964

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 AIP Advances ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/adv

An out-of-plane sensing fluxgate magnetic field

sensor with an assisted flux conductor
Cite as: AIP Advances 11, 015217 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0026964
Submitted: 26 August 2020 • Accepted: 16 December 2020 •
Published Online: 7 January 2021

Ping-Hsun Hsieh and Shih-Jui Chena)

AFFILIATIONS
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
An out-of-plane sensing fluxgate sensor based on the printing process and assembled with core and flux conductors is proposed. The assisted
inverted V-shaped flux conductor is utilized to collect the out-of-plane magnetic flux and direct it in the in-plane direction. Through the
transmitted magnetic flux, the planar construction of the coil and core achieves out-of-plane sensing. Under a sinusoidal excitation signal of
frequency 50 kHz and a current of 400 mA, the presented sensor shows a sensitivity of 127.3 V/T within a linear range of 0 μT–80 μT and
with nonlinearity below 5%.

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© 2021 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0026964

I. INTRODUCTION issue shows up with magnetoresistive14 sensors whose design was

Hall-effect sensors, magnetoresistive sensors, search coil sen- improved by placing the designed structure on the slope surface15,16
sors, and fluxgate sensors are some of the commonly used magnetic and the use of magnetic conductors.17–20 Considering the character-
sensors. As their names suggest, they are based on different work- istics of the fluxgate sensor and the simplicity of fabrication, the flux
ing principles.1,2 Fluxgate sensors are used for the measurement in conductor is used to guide the magnetic flux from the out-of-plane
static and low-frequency magnetic fields3 and have the ability to direction to the element plane for assisting in the measurement of
sense both the magnetic field amplitude and direction. Their stabil- the out-of-plane magnetic field.
ity and robustness allow them to be used in harsh environments.4 Due to the characteristic of the flat magnetic core, a planar
Consequently, they enjoy widespread use in the military, aerospace, two-axis magnetometer has been simply realized in the previous
and industrial sectors.5,6 A fluxgate sensor is generally composed work.13 Therefore, in this article, the main concern is on the out-
of excitation and sensing coils wound around a magnetic core.7–9 of-plane sensing magnetometer and the interference prevention of
The interaction between the excitation magnetic field generated by the in-plane magnetic field through this design.
the excitation coil and the external magnetic field changes the mag-
netization state of the magnetic core, thereby affecting the output
current of the sensing coil. This phenomenon is used to measure II. WORKING PRINCIPLE
the external magnetic field. In general, the sensing of the three- The schematic of the proposed out-of-plane sensing fluxgate
axis magnetic field is mainly achieved by three single-axis sensors magnetic sensor is shown in Fig. 1. The fluxgate sensor consists of
placed along the three orthogonal axes.10 However, the large vol- two excitation coils, two sensing coils, and a magnetic core with an
ume caused by the coil winding is the main disadvantage of the inverted V-shaped flux conductor. According to the characteristics
solenoid type fluxgate sensor, which results in complicated manu- of high permeability and magnetic saturation, the magnetic core and
facturing and inconvenience of integration with the working circuit. the magnetic flux conductor are made of amorphous materials com-
For ease of circuit integration, the use of a planar coil is proposed posed of cobalt, silicon, iron, and molybdenum with a thickness of
to ease and flatten the sensor structure.11,12 The planar fluxgate sen- 30 μm. The magnetic core is placed on the centerline of the exci-
sor can only measure magnetic fields in the direction of the element tation coils, while the two ends of the magnetic flux conductor are
plane due to the limitations of the flat magnetic core.13 The same aligned on the center of the excitation coils. The sensing coils are set

AIP Advances 11, 015217 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0026964 11, 015217-1

© Author(s) 2021
 AIP Advances ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/adv

of the core material, the permeability μ is not constant, and its value
depends on the B–H curve. When the magnetic core is not satu-
rated, based on the sinusoidal excitation signal, the magnetic flux
density changes with the excitation magnetic field and the varying
permeability. The EMF is proportional to the time derivative of the
magnetic flux density. The induced EMFs of the two sensing coils are
the same in the absence of an external magnetic field. When the mag-
netic core is saturated, the permeability approaches zero. Even the
excitation magnetic field continues to rise, the magnetic flux density
is not varying. Therefore, after differentiation, EMF is zero.
For out-of-plane magnetic field sensing, the main concern is
that the planar magnetic core will not react with the orthogonal
FIG. 1. Schematic of the fluxgate sensor. magnetic flux effectively. The effect of the out-of-plane magnetic
field applied on the planar magnetic core is verified through simula-
tion, as shown in Fig. 3(a). The magnetic flux will pass through the
magnetic core and cause little variation in the magnetic saturation.
to the outer ends of both magnetic cores. An AC signal is applied to Therefore, the flux conductor is utilized to increase the influence of
the excitation coils for the alternate excitation of the magnetic field. the orthogonal magnetic flux on the planar core, and the simula-
The direction of the current flow in the two excitation coils is coun- tion is shown in Fig. 3(b). Due to the high permeability of the flux
terclockwise and clockwise. The opposite direction of the excitation conductor, the external flux orthogonal to the sensor plane will be
current causes a different distribution of the magnetic field on either
side of the magnetic core, which could be verified through the sim-
ulation via ANSYS Maxwell, as shown in Fig. 2. The time-varying
excitation magnetic field leads to periodical magnetic saturation of
the magnetic core. The inner magnetic fields at the outer ends of
both cores are magnetized in the same direction. The magnetic flux
diverges at the end of the magnetic core and passes through the

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sensing coil. Over the alternation of the inner magnetic field, the
magnetic flux passing through the sensing coil produces an electro-
motive force (EMF) based on electromagnetic induction, which is
given by
dB
ε = −Ns As , (1)
dt
where N s is the number of the sensing coil turns, As is the cross-
sectional area of the sensing coil, and B = μH is the orthogonal mag-
netic flux density across the sensing coils. Due to the ferromagnetism

FIG. 3. The distribution of the out-of-plane magnetic field applied on the planar
fluxgate sensor (a) without flux conductor, (b) with unsaturated flux conductor, and
FIG. 2. The distribution of the excitation magnetic field around the sensor. (c) with saturated flux conductor.

AIP Advances 11, 015217 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0026964 11, 015217-2

© Author(s) 2021
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collected into the flux conductor and transmitted down to both cores
along the two ends of the inverse V-shape. The opposite direction of
the transmitted flux at both cores causes the interaction of the excita-
tion and external magnetic fields, which changes the saturation time
in both cores and affects the magnetic flux passing through the sens-
ing coils. Therefore, the induced EMF of the corresponding sensing
coils changes. The difference in saturation time leads to a shift in
the induced voltage of the two sensing coils, as shown in Fig. 4(a).
The coils at both ends are defined as coil 1 and coil 2. The dashed
line is the case only under the excitation magnetic field, while the
solid line is the case after applying the external magnetic field. By
subtracting the EMFs of each sensing coil, the first harmonic signal
is effectively canceled and the second harmonic signal is revealed.
However, it is worth noting that the conduction efficiency of the
out-of-plane magnetic flux will reduce when the flux conductor
reaches saturation. As shown in Fig. 3(c), the out-of-plane magnetic
flux has little effect on the magnetization of the planar magnetic
core.
For the in-plane magnetic field around the presented sensor,
the inner magnetic field caused by the external magnetic field has the
same direction at both cores. Therefore, the effect of the excitation
and external magnetic fields causes the same variation of the satura-
tion time at both cores. With the same saturation time, the induced
voltage of both sensing coils has the same amplitude but opposite
direction, as shown in Fig. 4(b). The difference of the EMFs in each
sensing coil is zero, which prevents the interference of the in-plane
magnetic field. FIG. 5. (a) Fabrication process flow of the fluxgate sensor. Photos of (b) the

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fabricated sensing coils and (c) the fabricated fluxgate sensor.

III. FABRICATION PROCESS

The fabrication process flow of the presented fluxgate sensor is
illustrated in Fig. 5(a). With the designed planar pattern, the exci-
tation coils and sensing coils are formed on the SiN wafer by the
direct-write process.21 By setting the path of the printer, the planar
patterns are rapidly formed with silver ink on the wafer surface. The
output of silver ink is controlled by air pressure to adjust the coils’
linewidth and avoid defects. After heat curing, the configuration of
the coils is established on the wafer, as shown in Fig. 5(b). The thick-
ness of the designed pattern can be stacked by repeating the writing
process and heat curing. By these steps, excitation and sensing coils
are formed on each wafer. The excitation coils are stacked upon the
sensing coils based on the same centerline with the isolation layer
in between to prevent short-circuiting. With one of the two ends
aligned to the centers of sensing coils, both rectangular-shaped cores
are pasted on the top surface of the excitation coils. The flux conduc-
tor is made into an inverse V-shape and is glued to the magnetic core
at a predefined angle with each end aligned to the centers of excita-
tion coils. As shown in Fig. 5(c), the proposed sensor has 26 turns of
the excitation coil and 15 turns of the sensing coil. The area of the
excitation coil and the sensing coil is 22 × 22 mm2 and 9 × 9 mm2 ,
respectively. The excitation coils contain silver ink with a linewidth
of 280 μm, while the sensing coils contain a linewidth of 150 μm.

IV. MEASUREMENT
FIG. 4. Relation between the magnetic flux and induced EMF under (a) the out-of- The measurement setup is shown in Fig. 6. An excitation sig-
plane magnetic field and (b) the in-plane magnetic field.
nal was provided by a function generator and adjusted by a power

AIP Advances 11, 015217 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0026964 11, 015217-3

© Author(s) 2021
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FIG. 6. Measurement setup.

amplifier. In the measurement, the fluxgate sensor was placed inside

the Helmholtz coils with the sensing axis aligned to the generated
uniform magnetic field. The external stray magnetic field was elim-
inated by using a magnetic shielding box. If the sensor detects the
magnetic field, the second harmonic signal is generated by the sens-
ing coil pairs connected differentially. The output signal of the sec-
ond harmonic frequency was transformed into a DC signal by using
a lock-in amplifier. With the output signal fed to an oscilloscope, the
observed induction voltage was used to determine the sensitivity and
linear range.

V. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

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To confirm the function of the flux conductor, the presented
design with and without a flux conductor was used to test the out-
of-plane sensing ability at the excitation current of 350 mA and the
excitation frequency of 50 kHz [Fig. 7(a)]. Without a flux conductor,
the output voltage slightly rises when the out-of-plane magnetic field FIG. 7. Measured average voltage of the fluxgate sensor (a) with and without the
increases from 0 μT to 150 μT, which results from a converging effect assisted flux conductor of 60○ and (b) with different angles of flux conductors.
caused by the high permeability of the planar magnetic core. While
using a flux conductor, the characteristic curve shows that the out-
put voltage increases in the testing range of the increasing external
magnetic field. Obviously, the configuration of the flux conductor At a fixed excitation frequency of 50 kHz, the property of the sen-
can effectively converge the out-of-plane magnetic flux and conduct sor with different excitation currents was compared, as shown in
it to the element plane for assisting in the measurement. In addition, Fig. 8(a). The sensor with an excitation current of 400 mA has a
flux conductors with different angles were investigated to compare higher output voltage and shows a better linear behavior than others
the conductive effect of the magnetic flux. for the same magnetic field range. Meanwhile, the sensor with a fixed
According to the angle between the inclined plane of the flux excitation current of 400 mA but varying excitation frequency was
conductor and the plane of the magnetic core, the types with angles measured, as shown in Fig. 8(b). Compared to other cases, the pro-
of 30○ , 45○ , and 60○ were tested [Fig. 7(b)]. In the measurement posed sensor shows better performance at an excitation frequency
of the applied magnetic field at 80 μT, the output voltages of the of 50 kHz. From Eq. (1), the EMF is proportional to the variation of
sensor with the flux conductor at angles of 30○ , 45○ , and 60○ are the magnetic flux density. Based on Ampère’s law, the magnetic flux
3.48 mV, 6.53 mV, and 9.46 mV, respectively. For out-of-plane sens- density is related to the magnetic field generated by the excitation
ing, the type of flux conductor at an angle of 60○ shows higher signal. Assume that the excitation signal is I sin(2πft), where I is the
sensitivity than other angles. That is, the 60○ angle structure is bet- excitation current and f is the excitation frequency. Through differ-
ter for magnetic flux conduction in the out-of-plane to the in-plane entiation, the excitation current and frequency are positively corre-
configuration. The possible reason is that the magnetic flux con- lated with the induced EMF, which conforms to the measurement
ductor with a larger angle has a higher height, so it can converge results when the magnetic core is not saturated. In order to further
more out-of-plane magnetic flux to the magnetic core, resulting in confirm the accuracy of the fluxgate sensor, the component with an
a higher induced voltage. Based on the consideration of sensitivity, excitation current of 400 mA and a frequency of 50 kHz was tested
the fluxgate sensor with a flux conductor of 60○ angle is used for the by using the applied in-plane magnetic field. Under the magnetic
following measurement. field of 80 μT, the crossfield error is 10.4%, which might be caused
To improve the performance of the fluxgate sensor, the com- by assembly errors of the flux conductor during the manufacturing
ponent was tested by varying the parameter of the excitation signal. process.

AIP Advances 11, 015217 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0026964 11, 015217-4

© Author(s) 2021
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flux conductor. Combining the planar pattern formed by the direct-

write process and assembling the flux conductor, this study shows a
rapid forming method for the planar fluxgate sensor. In addition, by
combining a planar two-axis fluxgate magnetometer,13 the proposed
sensor used for out-of-plane sensing shows potential in achieving
multi-axis sensing without the combination of flipping sensors.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and
Technology (Taiwan) under Contract Nos. 108-2221-E-008-080 and
109-2221-E-008-030. The authors would like to thank NCHC of
the National Applied Research Laboratories (Taiwan) for technical
support.

DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
within the article.

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AIP Advances 11, 015217 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0026964 11, 015217-5

© Author(s) 2021