Magnetic Fiber Sensing by Magneto-Impedance Effect with Time-Domain-Reflectometry

This paper presents a distributed magnetic sensing system for continuous magnetic profile measurement along the entire length of a sensor cable. Our sensor includes novel features such as: (1) coaxial cable with a bundle of magnetic wires as an inner conductor for inducing a magneto-impedance (MI) effect, (2) reflected wave from the characteristic impedance unmatching region, and (3) monitoring the position and strength of the magnetic field with time-domain reflectometry (TDR). This paper reports the principle of magnetic fiber sensing, position identification with distance resolution of 10 mm, and a sensor sensitivity of 53 μV/μT by using a bias magnetic field.