Calculation of Skin Depths and Eddy-Current Power Losses for Magnetic Position Sensors

We present a theoretic model to calculate skin depths and eddy-current power losses for a magnetic position sensor. Eddy-current, arised from the operation of an alternating-current excitation, induces secondary currents and fields between magnetic material and magnetic position sensor. In this paper, a magnetic position sensor system is simplified to be an outer-winding coil along the axial direction of a low carbon steel bar. The analytical model is derived from basic field and circuit theory considering a linear approximation for a nonlinear permeability. Thus the skin depths and eddy-current power losses from the model in eddy-current modeling techniques at various frequencies of an excited current source can be calculated. The proposed configuration is capable of predicting the skin depths and eddy-current power losses for a magnetic position sensor and has a consistence with experiments.