Removal of earth's magnetic field effect on magnetoelastic resonance sensors by an antisymmetric bias field

Magnetoelastic sensors are used in a wide field of wireless sensing applications. The sensing element is a low-cost magnetostrictive ribbon whose resonant frequency depends on the measured quantity. The accuracy of magnetoelastic sensors is limited by the fact that the resonant frequency is also affected by the earth's magnetic field. In this paper we present a technique to minimize this effect by applying an antisymmetric magnetic bias field to the ribbon. The ribbon's response to external perturbation fields was measured and compared to a conventional sensor design. Our results show that the influence of the earth's magnetic field could be reduced by 77%.