We have fabricated submicron giant magnetoresistive (GMR) structures and evaluated their sensitivity for biomagnetic applications. GMR devices were fabricated using electron beam lithography, with minimum dimensions below 100 nm. We developed a new characterization technique for these sensors, using a scanned nanoscale magnetic probe and monitoring the resulting response of the sensors. The mag...

The detection of magnetic activity enables noncontact and noninvasive evaluation of electrical activity in humans. We review the detection of biomagnetic fields using amorphous metal wire-based magnetic sensors with the sensitivity of a pico-Tesla (pT) level. We measured magnetic fields close to the thoracic wall in a healthy subject sitting on a chair. The magnetic sensor head was mounted perp...

Tactile sensors are essential if robots are to safely interact with the external world and to dexterously manipulate objects. Current tactile sensors have limitations restricting their use, notably being too fragile or having limited performance. Magnetic field-based soft tactile sensors offer a potential improvement, being durable, low cost, accurate and high bandwidth, but they are relatively...

In this thesis, we consider the problem of estimating position and orientation (6D pose) using inertial sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes). Inertial sensors provide information about the change in position and orientation at high sampling rates. However, they suffer from integration drift and hence need to be supplemented with additional sensors. To combine information from the inertial se...

The Bead ARray Counter (BARC) is a multi-analyte biosensor that uses DNA hybridization, magnetic microbeads, and giant magnetoresistive (GMR) sensors to detect and identify biological warfare agents. The current prototype is a table-top instrument consisting of a microfabricated chip (solid substrate) with an array of GMR sensors, a chip carrier board with electronics for lock-in detection, a f...

Several types of sensors have been available in off-the-shelf mobile devices, including motion, magnetic, vision, acoustic, and location sensors. This paper focuses on the fusion of the data acquired from motion and magnetic sensors, i.e., accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer sensors, for the recognition of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) using pattern recognition techniques. The system d...

There has been permanent interest in investigations of new magnetic sensors and their various applications (Edelstein, 2007). Last years there is a rapid progress in development of magneto-optical sensors because of their sensitivity and potential for miniaturization. Magnetometers, based on magneto-optical sensors have high sensitivity comparable to, or even surpassing this of the SQUIDs (Supe...

On pipeline magnetic flux leakage (MFL) inspection, welds and debris are present in all pipelines and cause lift-off of the sensors and/or the magnetizer of the magnetic flux leakage inspection tool, and have the potential to affect the acquired magnetic flux leakage data. By adopting ANSYS software to simulate the effect of lift-off on the MFL signal. The results of this research indicate that...

Determining orientation with respect to a known reference plays an important role in almost all modes of navigation. As the sensors required for measuring magnetic field have found their way into portable navigation devices, researchers have started investigating their application to orientation estimation in different environments. Nevertheless, the success of these sensors for orientation est...

Industry continues to reap the benefits of solid state magnetic field sensing. Every day new applications are found for solid state magnetic field sensors due to their small size, low power. And relatively low cost. The new frontier for these solid state sensors is very low magnetic fields; the kinds encountered when looking for geophysical anomalies, either natural or man-made, various physiol...