Measurement of Far Field Magnetic Moment Vector of a Moving Ferromagnetic Object

In magnetic anomaly detection, it is a prerequisite to master the far-field magnetic moment vector information of the target. It is important to measure the magnetic moment of the target in target location, recognition and degaussing. In the paper, we proposed a method of measuring the magnetic moment vector of the target based on the total geomagnetic field. In this method, a sensor array with the scalar magnetometers was constructed and the quantitative factors of the magnetometer were analyzed. In order to eliminate the time-varying and uneven spatial distribution of geomagnetic total field, a double gradient algorithm was applied to magnetic moment measurement in this method. And a criterion function of determining the magnitude and direction of the target magnetic moment was defined. The proposed method was validated by the theoretical calculation and real experimental data. The results showed that the measured magnetic field data were qualitatively in good agreement with the theoretical curve. For the magnitude of magnetic moment, the average relative deviation was 5.1%. And the average relative deviation of inclination and declination of the moment were 3.2% and 2.5%, respectively. In addition, we attempted to separate the induced magnetic moment and the intrinsic magnetic moment of the target. The proposed method can be used as a reference for the target magnetic location and demagnetization.