Magnetic Characterization of Actuators for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

A dipole equivalent modeling approach and experimental results, for relatively small magnetic sources such as servomotors, are presented. Two modeling schemes, viz. the dual permanent magnetic dipole (DuPMaD) and the permanent magnetic dipole (PMaD), are proposed. PMaD assumes only one equivalent magnetic dipole within the physical dimension of the source component, whereas DuPMaD employs a second magnetic dipole with a view to characterize the field more accurately. The equivalent dipole moment vectors and their positions are estimated via fitting experimental data collected on three orthogonal planes around the specimen. Results show good agreements between the model outputs and the experimental data, with both the DuPMaD and the PMaD schemes performing closely in terms of modeling accuracy. Such models may be used to estimate and minimize magnetic interference in various applications such as in geomagnetic surveying using unmanned aerial vehicles considered in this paper.