IAICT 2014, Bali 28-30 August 2014
Long Range Magnetic Field Measurement with Magnetic Sensors
Marcelo Ribeiro, Michael Ortner, Michael Seger
ElectroMagnetic Sense and Control
CTR – Carinthian Tech Research
Villach, Austria
marcelo.ribeiro@ctr.at, michael.ortner@ctr.at, michael.seger@ctr.at
Abstract — Magnetic systems provide powerful tools for
contact free motion detection. Such systems are very robust,
being capable of operating in harsh environments, e.g. in the
presence of dirt and at high temperature, and have life-times
of up to decades. Another advantage is that quasi-static
applications, typical for the detection of mechanical motion,
enable the measurement of magnetic fields from outside of a
closed system, as the magnetic fields easily penetrate solid
non-magnetic materials. On the other hand, the fast decay of
the magnetic field of a magnet is a known characteristic and
normally a limiting factor regarding distance between
magnet and sensor. To overcome this issue, a device
constructed of a highly permeable material is proposed,
aiming to focus the magnetic field at a sensing point, hence
named “field focuser”. Similar concepts of magnetic field
focusers have been proposed and are available in various
geometrical designs [1, 2, 3]. Currently, there are several
realizations of magnet-magnetic sensor systems where the
motion of the magnet is detected by the change in field
amplitude at the sensor. These systems include linear motion
detection, axis rotation detection, complex composed motion
detection and many others, which lead to a large range of
industrial applications, especially in the automotive branch
[4, 5]. This work aims to extend the knowledge on magnetic
systems and help developers to understand limits and
advantages of such setups.
Keywords — magnetic sensing; magnetic simulations; far
magnetic field detection; field focusing; robot manipulator
I. INTRODUCTION
While magnetic field sensors and sensing principles
have been around for a long time [6], the last decades have
witnessed an explosion in the development of magnetic
sensing technologies driven by the technological advance
and a rapidly growing demand in industrial applications
[7]. This development has been made possible by the
numerous advantages provided by magnetic sensors over
other measurement systems, such as small packaging sizes
and miniaturization [8], low production costs, contactless
measurement possibilities, high resolution [9], low power
requirements and an excellent robustness against
vibrations, temperature, moisture and dirt. Today’s
magnetic sensors have established themselves in every
major industrial sector with applications ranging from
mechanical orientation, position and motion sensing,
magnetic material and state analysis and detection, via
navigation and guidance systems to a variety of
applications in medicine, archeology, space exploration
and countless others [10, 11].
In this study we focus on magnet-magnetic sensor
systems. One of the great advantages when dealing with
such systems is that the magnet, being the field source, is
978-1-4799-4909-0/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
in principle a passive component that requires no power
supply. At the same time, the magnetic field of a
permanent magnet is strongly position dependent. With the
potential for contact free position detection in combination
with the robustness of such systems – modern magnets can
last easily for several years without showing
demagnetization effects when treated accordingly – it is
not very surprising that sophisticated schemes have been
developed for position and linear distance measurements
that find frequent use in the modern industry [12].
In this paper a field focusing device to enhance weak
magnetic field measurement using ordinary sensors is
proposed in the context of magnet-magnetic sensor
principles for long distance measurements.
The following topics cover the problem description, the
proposed solution and a description of the simulation
environment and experimental setup used to test the
model. The results from simulations and experiments are
presented, the system is validated and its performance is
analyzed. The conclusions are drawn in the last section,
followed by proposals for future improvements.
II. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
When dealing with linear distance measurements using
magnet-magnetic sensor systems, one of the biggest
difficulties is to achieve the magnetic field amplitudes, of
the order of few tens of millitesla, required by the sensor
manufacturers, e.g. [13]. This is due to the fact that the
field amplitude of the magnetic field B(r) of a permanent
magnet typically decays like (1) for distances that are of
the order of the size of the magnet or larger [14].
(1)
Here r denotes the distance from the center of the
magnet and M denotes the magnetization which is
proportional to the remanence field of the magnet,
Br = µ0·M (µ0 representing vacuum permeability). As the
field amplitude scales linearly with the magnetization, in
general one cannot compensate the fast decay with the
distance by choosing stronger magnets. For example, to
achieve a magnetic field amplitude of 20mT, as required
by [13], for a cylindrical bar magnet of diameter
D = 10mm, length L = 10mm and a very strong remanence
field of Br = 1.1T, typical for NdFeB (Neodymium)
magnets, the field amplitude drops to 20mT on the axis
perpendicular to the symmetry axis of the magnet when
only at ~17mm from the magnet surface and drops down
to ~2mT at a distance of 42mm from the magnet surface.
For industrial applications this fact is quite troubling as
the prices of permanent magnets, especially the strong rare
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IAICT 2014, Bali 28-30 August 2014

earth magnets, make this system uneconomical when the
distances that should be measured exceed few centimeters.
Under the above circumstances, position and distance
measurements are therefore only feasible in the immediate
vicinity of the magnets.
III. PROPOSED SOLUTION
To overcome the limitations when dealing with
position and distance measurements, a field focusing
device that allows one to detect the weak fields of
permanent magnets at large distances was developed. The
focuser consists of a core made of a soft magnetic material
of high permeability, which is divided into two pieces by a
small gap with a magnetic field sensor placed inside. The
underlying principle is that the highly permeable core
attracts and enhances the weak external magnetic field, as
outlined in the sketch in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. Sketch of the focusing principle
If the gap is small, compared to the thickness of the
core, the field propagation in the focuser can be described
using magnetic circuit theory [15]. The two major effects
are that the magnetic field in the core becomes
homogeneous as the gap acts like a resistance, and that it
propagates at full amplitude through the gap.
Such a setup, thus, enhances the magnetic field that can
be picked up by the sensor, while being robust against
positioning tolerances of the sensor inside the core’s air
gap.
IV. AUXILIARY TOOLS
In order to test and understand the system,
magnetostatic simulations were performed using the FEM
environment ANSYS Maxwell v.16, while the
experimental part was executed with a self developed
system composed of a robot manipulator, a magnetic
sensor, and hardware, firmware and software that access
sensor data and provide output files for further analysis.
A. Simulation setup
Linearized models for the materials were used with,
e.g. a typical relative permeability of iron (µr = 3000) for
the core, and typical values of the remanence field and
permeability of NdFeB (Br = 1.05T and µr = 1.007) for the
magnet. Influences on the magnetic field by the sensor
itself have been neglected.
B. Experimental setup
The system consists of a robot arm with its controller
(EPSON E2C351S), two sensor readout boxes
(Measurement Computing USB1608FS and Xilinx Spartan
3 series XC3S1200E), a magnetic sensor (Melexis
MLX90215), a integration software (CTR MagSens
readout suit V1.0), and tools that can provide physical
support for magnets and sensors.
The MLX90215 was configured to its highest
sensitivity, 140mV/mT, and powered with 5V. The
detection of positively oriented fields is expressed from
2.47V upwards, while the detection of negatively oriented
fields from 2.47V downwards. The conversion of the
sensor readout from Volts to Tesla is explained by (2).
Further information can be found in [16].
(2)
Here x denotes the sensor output in Volt and B the
magnetic flux density expressed in mT.
V. FOCUSER DEVELOPMENT
While the initial idea of how to improve the magnetic
field detection on greater distances is quite simple, the
development of the focusing device was a step by step
process that shall partly be reproduced here for
justification and argument of the final setup.
A. Initial simulations
The initial setup was an educated guess with the
concept of Fig. 1 in mind. From the magnetic circuit
theory it is clear that the gap, that should be of the order of
1mm to hold a magnetic sensor, must be much smaller
than the thickness of the core. The initial dimensions,
presented in Fig. 2, were chosen in accordance with the
dimensions of the available material for experimentation.
In the simulation the core was modeled with linearized
St37 Steel (µr = 2700) and Iron (µr = 3000), while the
magnet was modeled with linearized NdFeB (Br = 1.05T
and µr = 1.007) and SmCo (Br = 1.25T and µr = 1.17).
Figure 2. Initial model dimensions
The asymmetric positioning of the sensor air gap is due
to the material available for the production of the first core
prototype for the actual measurements, and the “U” shape
was considered for better fitting of the core onto the actual
“bent” form of the magnetic field lines, see Fig. 1.
Fig. 3 shows a snapshot of the magnetic field in such a
setup from the FEM simulation using the previously
introduced steel core and an NdFeB magnet.
Figure 3. Initial simulation snapshot

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IAICT 2014, Bali 28-30 August 2014

As expected, the magnetic field lines were strongly The results from the simulations are presented in
focused inside the core even at large distances from the Fig. 5.
magnet. Results from the simulations using an iron core
can be found in Table I.
B. Initial measurements
To confirm that the simulations were in accordance
with the output given by real measurement devices, an
experiment was conducted. In this experiment the magnets
were placed manually using a simple non-magnetic
magnet holder, and the core was constructed from
laminated, soft magnetic transformer sheets. The magnetic
field in the gap was read out with a magnetometer,
Wuntronic Koshava [17].
While the experiment was of a crude nature, it draws
advantage from the fact that it is quite stable against small
displacements of its components. Results from the
experiment are given in Table I.
C. Simulation and measurement result comparison
To reasonably compare simulation results and
measurement outputs, the simulation was adjusted to the Figure 5. Core optimization charts
experiment at a single point: for a distance of 50mm the
remanence field of the magnets was adjusted to fit the The traces show the strength of the magnetic field at
experimental data. This was necessary to account for the the position of the sensor in units of millitesla. The four
unknown exact remanence fields of the magnets used in images show the results for four different distances
the experiment, and their possible demagnetization before between the magnet and the core. On the horizontal axis
the experiment. All other points were simulated using the the length of the core is varied from 50mm to 150mm.
same remanence field. The results for experiment and Different colors/line styles and different line thicknesses
simulation are given in Table I. denote different arm lengths and core thicknesses. One can
TABLE I. SIMULATION VS. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
immediately see the tendency that the field will be
strongest when the arm length disappears. This can be
Results understood as the absolute distance between the sensor and
NdFeB - 18x12mm SmCo - 10x5mm the magnet increases with the arm length. Other results,
Dist. Sim. [mT] Meas. [mT] Sim. [mT] Meas. [mT] not so readily interpreted, are that the long cores seem to
5cm 5.99 ±0.5% 6.02 ±0.3mT 0.651 ±0.5% 0.64 ±0.03mT improve the field up to a certain point, and that thinner
7cm 3.20 ±0.5% 3.25 ±0.2mT 0.357 ±0.5% 0.36 ±0.03mT cores seem to work just as fine, sometimes even better,
9cm 1.82 ±0.5% 1.88 ±0.1mT 0.202 ±0.5% 0.21 ±0.03mT than thick ones.
11cm 1.12 ±0.5% 1.17 ±0.1mT 0.125 ±0.5% 0.14 ±0.03mT While the optimal arm length “H” of the core is zero
the optimal length “L” seems to depend on the core’s
Table I shows that experiment and simulation results thickness as well as the distance from the magnet. When it
are in good agreement and match with a maximal comes to core thickness it appears that thinner cores would
difference of only 10%, despite the simple experimental increase the flux when there is no gap, however, for a fixed
setup. gap size of 1mm, the optimal thickness lies between 6 to
10mm.
D. Core optimizations Further simulations, where the shape of the core was
After the concept was considered valid, an analyzed, showed that a cylindrically shaped core, which
optimization phase was started aiming to find better would be easier to manufacture and handle, shows a very
dimension and material configurations. This optimization similar behavior compared to the rectangular one.
process was carried out in the simulation environment, A screenshot from the simulation environment with the
which was considered reliable after the previous successful cylindrical shape can be seen in Fig. 6.
comparisons with experiments.
The procedure consisted of trying different materials
and dimensions for the core. The variables taken into
account for optimization were the length of the core “L”,
the thickness of the core “D” and the arm length of the
core “H”, depicted in Fig. 4.

Figure 6. Final core shape

For the core material, simulations with variation of the

material permeability (µ) were conducted. As expected
from the magnetic circuit theory, the magnetic field inside
Figure 4. Variables varied during the core’s optimization phase

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the gap should increase with the magnetic permeability of
the core. The results are presented in Fig. 7.
Figure 7. Core’s relative permeability analysis
It is possible to see that the field increases until a
permeability of approximately µr = 1000 is reached, but
little is gained by choosing values of µr larger than a few
thousand, which is interesting from a cost point of view.
E. Focuser manufacturing
The core dimensions as well as the material
characteristics based on the simulation outcomes were
used to manufacture an according prototype, which can be
seen in Fig. 8.
Figure 8. Final core prototype
The final design consists of two cylindrical pieces of
ferrite with a relative permeability of µr ~ 2000, a length of
43mm and a diameter of 6mm. It includes a plastic sensor
holder, which holds the sensor and joins both core halves.
Additionally, there is a hole where a screw can be placed
to fixate the field focuser as an integrant of another system.
All parts, except the core, are made of non-magnetic
materials.
VI. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
The performance of the field focuser was analyzed by
comparing measurements of the magnetic field amplitudes
in the presence and absence of the ferrite cores, both with
simulations and experiments.
A snapshot of the magnetic fields plotted in the
simulation software, which illustrate the operation of the
system, can be found on Fig. 9.
Figure 9. Prototyped core’s simulation snapshot
The red areas represent strong magnetic fields and the
blue areas weak magnetic fields. It is possible to see that
the areas with higher values are concentrated around the
100
magnet (as it is the magnetic field source) and in the ferrite
cores of the field focuser.
Subsequently, measurements were executed placing the
field focuser on a fixed XYZU coordinate (where U
represent rotation about Z) and moving a permanent
magnet in reference to this fixed point, performing
readouts at the center of the gap between the ferrite cores
for different XYZU magnet positions.
Initial measurements were performed placing a
rectangular shaped magnet parallel to the field focuser and
moving it in Y direction, as the sketch in Fig. 10 shows.
Figure 10. Sketch of the initial Y measurements
The measurements were carried out from distances of
10 to 190mm between magnet and cores (limited by the
robot arm’s operation range) with 10mm step size, which
provided a dataset with 19 results for each of the four
scenarios: simulations with and without the ferrite cores as
well as experiments with and without the ferrite cores.
Fig. 11 presents the magnetic field intensity in function of
the distance from core for the described scenarios.
Figure 11. Results of the Y measurements
The continuous lines represent simulation results and
the points experimental results, being the red traces from
the data without the ferrite cores and the blue traces with
the presence of the cores. Analyzing the chart, it is clear
that the field focuser improves the measuring range, as the
amplitude is enhanced on the whole range in the presence
of the cores when compared to their absence, reassuring
the validity of the proposed solution. The plateau of the
sensor signal at small distances (blue points) is due to the
saturation of the sensor, since the field was too strong as a
result of the proximity of the magnet to the cores. This
does not present a threat as the system is intended for long
range measurements.
A deeper analysis of the simulation data (chosen due to
its lower fluctuations) brings out the field focuser’s
performance with a comparison between the signals,
shown in Fig. 12.
IAICT 2014, Bali 28-30 August 2014
Figure 12. Field focuser’s performance extracted from simulations
The blue trace represents the difference between the
signal with and without the ferrite cores, and the red trace
the percentage improvement of the signal strength in the
presence of the cores. Although, the absolute signal
improvement (blue) decays over distance, its percentage
representation (red) shows that the performance increases
over distance, which hints at a slower decay than would be
expected having (1) in mind.
Those results are promising, but in the real world
applications low amplitudes result in low signal-to-noise
ratios. Therefore, a further performance analysis had to be
done taking the characteristics of the readout system used
in the application into account.
The sensor used in the experiments have noise levels
ranging from 8mVpp to 60mVpp (50mVpp for the used
configuration), limiting the measurement range to signals
above the noise threshold. Fig. 13 shows a semi-logarithm
plot of the simulated results with a reference line
representing the sensor noise threshold.
Figure 13. Performance comparison over distance with noise threshold
The blue trace represents the signal in the presence of
the ferrite cores, the black trace the data from the
simulation without the cores, and the red dashed line
represents the sensor’s noise barrier. Measurements
without the ferrite cores would become critical at
approximately 40mm of distance between sensing point
and magnet, while in the presence of the cores the critical
point would move to approximately 140mm, a
performance improvement of about 250%.
Further measurements were then performed including
the X axis in the movement range, which was expected to
show the influence of such offsets. Fig. 14 shows a sketch
of the XY measurement plane.
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Figure 14. Sketch of the XY measurement plane
The measurements were carried out from 10 to 190mm
of distance between magnet and cores (Y axis) and
from -100 to 100mm parallel to the core (X axis), both
with 10mm step size, which produced a dataset with 399
results (19Y x 21X) for each of the four scenarios:
simulations with and without the ferrite cores as well as
experiments with and without the ferrite cores. Fig. 15
shows 3D plots of the magnetic field intensity in the
sensing point as functions of the XY position of the
magnet for the described scenarios.
Figure 15. Results of the XY measurements
Plots (a), (b), (d) and (e) show respectively the data
from experiment with and without cores, and the data from
simulation with and without cores, while plots (c) and (f)
show overlays of focused and unfocused signals from
experiment and simulation for comparison purposes, which
highlight the amplitude difference on the presence and
absence of the focuser.
In order to facilitate further interpretation, X datasets
over a fixed Y coordinate (40mm) were extracted (found in
Fig. 16), as well as snapshots of vector plots of the
simulation environment with different magnet positions
were generated (Fig. 17).
Figure 16. X dataset extracts at fixed Y
IAICT 2014, Bali 28-30 August 2014
The continuous lines come from simulations and the
points from experiments, being the red traces from the data
without the ferrite cores and the blue traces with the
presence of the cores.
Figure 17. Snapshots of simulation results for X positions at fixed Y
coordinates
The red areas represent strong magnetic field
amplitudes and the blue areas weak magnetic field
amplitudes.
Having in mind that the sensor in use is only capable of
detecting magnetic field components in one dimension, it
is positioned flatly in the gap between both ferrite cores
and the sensing direction is perpendicular to its surface,
focus to the vector X component should be given.
Fig. 16 shows that the signal takes positive and
negative values and includes zero crossings, while one not
familiar with magnetic fields would expect that, as long as
the orientation of the magnet (inversion of the magnetic
poles) is not changed, the signal should remain positive.
That is explained by the vector plots from Fig. 17, which
show that the fields are oriented in different directions
depending on the magnet’s X position. It is possible to see
that in (a) and (c) the vectors are pointing primarily in X
direction, while in (b) primarily in Y direction, which from
the sensor’s point of view means although there is the
presence of magnetic fields in (b), it is not able to detect
them, while in (a) and (c) it can detect the full amplitude of
the field, as the field vectors show primarily X
components.
A deeper analysis of the data from Fig. 16 points out
the field focuser’s performance with a comparison between
the signals for the X axis, shown in Fig. 18.
Figure 18. Field focuser’s performance with X offsets
The blue trace represents the difference between the
signal with and without the ferrite cores, and the red trace
the percentage improvement of the signal strength in the
presence of the cores. The peaks observed at about ±40
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and ±50mm are due to the difference of the zero crossings
for focused and unfocused signals, consequence of the
influences of the presence of the focuser itself, and present
no realistic performance behavior. Ignoring the peaks and
the influences of the measurement system, it is possible to
say the performance ranges around 2000% when dealing
with X movements.
VII. CONCLUSION
The fast magnetic field decay is a known characteristic
when detecting fields of magnets at larger distances. The
proposed concept of a field focuser was expected to
decrease the effects of this issue, and already at the initial
stage it was clear that the proposal was feasible.
The positive results from the initial stage gave way to
an optimization phase, where it was learned that different
dimensions, materials and geometries play an important
role on the field focuser’s efficiency, that the dimensions
are related with the sensor and magnet type, shape and
size, and that the core’s permeability (µr) have a
performance saturation, which allows the use of cost-
efficient materials.
The outcomes of the optimization phase were
prototyped and tested successfully, showing a massive
improvement of the magnitude of the magnetic field
amplitudes when at large distances from the magnets.
The prototype’s performance analysis showed that the
signal detectability grows significantly with the increase of
the distance Y, although the measurement system poses a
barrier by inserting noise in the data, thus limiting the
measurement range to a point where data can be
distinguished from noise.
As a consequence of the noise from the measurement
devices, a generic system with a broad measurement band
involving high gains and, therefore, higher noise levels,
will suffer more from the effects of the influence of the
measurement system, while a solution tailored to a specific
problem will be able to handle the side effects of the
measurement system better when operating on a low noise
configuration.
The presence of X offsets changes the orientation of
the magnetic field in the sensing point which, due to the
systems characteristics, means even offsetting the magnet
in one direction only there are minima and maxima, as
well as positive and negative values. Such characteristic
can be used in favor of the developer, depending on the
target application.
The proposed system is a cost effective way to enhance
the detection of weak magnetic fields with ordinary
magnetic field sensors. Such systems can be used for
position measurement, taking advantage of the extension
of the measurement ranges.
VIII. FUTURE WORK PROPOSAL
Considering the consequences that the measurement
system poses on the results, the influence of the X offsets
and the performance peaks for different XY coordinates,
one could experiment with different sensor configurations
and with different setups for sensitivity, gain, etc., to fine
tune to the desired readout region, also taking advantage of
the minima and maxima found along the XY plane.
IAICT 2014, Bali 28-30 August 2014
Preliminary readouts involving a rotation of the magnet
as a detection mechanism also showed positive results and
further analysis should be performed.
The influence of the ferrite cores on the magnetic field
orientation as well as the relation between focused and
unfocused signal are part of ongoing research and shall be
discussed in further publications.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Competence Center CTR is funded within the
R&D Program COMET - Competence Centers for
Excellent Technologies by the Federal Ministries of
Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT), of
Economics and Labor (BMWA) and it is managed on their
behalf by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
The Austrian provinces (Carinthia and Styria) provide
additional funding.
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