Nonlinear Control of Magnetic Signatures

Abstract

Magnetic properties of ferrite structures are known to cause fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field around the object. These fluctuations are known as the object's magnetic signature and are unique based on the object's geometry and material. It is a common practice to neutralize magnetic signatures periodically after certain time intervals, however there is a growing interest to develop real time degaussing systems for various applications. Development of real time degaussing system is a challenging problem because of magnetic hysteresis and difficulties in measurement or estimation of near-field flux data. The goal of this research is to develop a real time feedback control system that can be used to minimize magnetic signatures for ferrite structures. Experimental work on controlling the magnetic signature of a cylindrical steel shell structure with a magnetic disturbance provided evidence that the control process substantially increased the interior magnetic flux. This means near field estimation using interior sensor data is likely to be inaccurate. Follow up numerical work for rectangular and cylindrical cross sections investigated variations in shell wall flux density under a variety of ambient excitation and applied disturbances. Results showed magnetic disturbances could corrupt interior sensor data and magnetic shielding due to the shell walls makes the interior very sensitive to noise. The magnetic flux inside the shell wall showed little variation due to inner disturbances and its high base value makes it less susceptible to noise. This research proceeds to describe a nonlinear controller to use the shell wall data as an input. A nonlinear plant model of magnetics is developed using a constant to represent domain rotation lag and a gain function to describe the magnetic hysteresis curve for the shell wall. The model is justified by producing hysteresis curves for multiple materials, matching experimental data using a particle swarm algorithm, and observing frequency effects. The plant model is used in a feedback controller and simulated for different materials as a proof of concept.