Magnetic giant magnetoresistance commercial off the shelf for space applications

Abstract

The increase of complexity and miniaturizing level of Aerospace platforms make use of commercial off the shelf (COTS) components constitute a plausible alternative to the use of military or rad-tolerant components. In this work, giant magnetoresistance commercial sensors are studied to be used as COTS, the next missions to be launched in the framework of the Spanish National Space Program: OPTOS and SEOSAT. This technology of magnetic sensors is interesting due to their high operating range up to 2mT and the high temperature dynamic range from −50 up to 150°C. However, in contrast, it presents high hysteresis and nonlinearity, temperature dependence, and poor repeatability. To improve the hysteretic, nonlinear and nonrepetitive behavior, a method consisting of a combination of reset and biasing has been designed and implemented for the ±75μT linear region centered around 300–375μT biasing field.