Investigation of magnetic sensors and hardware design of a sensor platform for human-computer interaction purposes

Abstract: Company A develops algorithms and hardware for the application of magnet tracking, to be able to use a dipole magnet as an interaction tool between humans and computers. This master thesis investigates the available magnetic sensors through a market survey and practical testing of a selection of the sensors in purpose to determine the most suitable magnetic sensor and magnetic sensor technology for the application of magnet tracking. With the most suitable sensor found in the investigation, a sensor platform is designed and manufactured. The sensor HMC5983 from Honeywell is found to be the most suitable sensor and is designed into the sensor platform, which also includes ,for instance, a wireless MCU, CC2640 from Texas Instru- ments, together with a PCB antenna and a PSU including a battery charger, BQ24075 from Texas Instruments. The most suitable mag- netic sensor technology was found to be magnetoresistive sensors. The sensor platform was designed according to the requirements and is working good enough to enable company A to start testing their algorithms for magnet tracking on the new platform.