the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Quad-Mag Board for CubeSat Applications
- 1Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- 2The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA
- 3Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- 4Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
- 5Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- 6Made In Space Incorporated, Moffett Field, California, USA
- 7General Dynamics Land Systems, Sterling Heights, MI, USA
- 1Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- 2The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA
- 3Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- 4Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
- 5Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- 6Made In Space Incorporated, Moffett Field, California, USA
- 7General Dynamics Land Systems, Sterling Heights, MI, USA
Abstract. The design, characteristics, and performance of a CubeSat magnetometer board (Quad-Mag) equipped with four PNI RM3100 magnetometers is presented. The low size, weight, power, and cost of the RM3100 enables the inclusion of four sensors on a single board, allowing a potential factor of two reduction in the noise floor established for an individual sensor via oversampling with multiple sensors. The instrument experimentally achieved a noise floor of 5.345 nT (individual axis), averaging across each axis of the four magnetometers, at a 65 Hz sampling rate. This approaches the previously theoretically established limit for the system of 4.37 nT at 40 Hz. A single on-board, Texas Instrument MSP430 microcontroller handles synchronization of the magnetometers and facilitates data collection through a simple UART-based command interface to a host system. The Quad-Mag system has a mass of 59.05 g and total power consumption of 23 mW while sampling and 14 mW while idle. The Quad-Mag enables 1 nT magnetic field measurements at 1 Hz using commercial-off-the-shelf sensors for space applications.
Brady P. Strabel et al.
Status: open (extended)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-293', Boris Ginzburg, 26 May 2022
reply
Manuscript describes characteristic and performance of a magnetometer board (Quad-Mag) equipped with four PNI RM3100 magnetometers.
Description is detailed and clear.
To my mind, there are two technical characteristics that should be given consideration:
a) Mutual influence of magnetic sensors placed on the same board (could be evaluated, for instance, with the help of another magnetometer board)
b) Magnetic influence (interference) of board electronics on magnetic measurements being taken (probably similar to a))
Technical: page 5, line 4 - probably, term "thermal drift" instead of "thermal gain" is more customary? (and further in the text);
page 5, line 12 - should be Figure 3a
page 13, line 1 - should be "configured to gain sample"
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Brady Strabel, 04 Aug 2022
reply
First, we want to thank you for taking the time to read the paper and provide useful feedback. Please find our replies to the comments:
a/b) These are valid concerns. We have added a section “Interference” detailing the influence of multiple magnetometers and of board electronics on measurements. Specifically, we quantify the effects on the resolution of a single magnetometer as it samples in different scenarios (i.e. with the quad-mag board absent entirely, on the quad-mag board with no other magnetometers present, and on the quad-mag board with all magnetometers present). We show that the differences in resolution between the cases are negligible and thus we can say the board electronics and multiple sensors do not influence our results.
Technical:
*page 5, line 12 - changed to figure 3a
*page 13, line 1 - changed to “the system was again configured to sample”
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Brady Strabel, 04 Aug 2022
reply
Brady P. Strabel et al.
Model code and software
Quad-Mag Data Analysis Brady P. Strabel https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6515198
Brady P. Strabel et al.
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