Patent ID: 7603251

Claim:
A magnetic anomaly sensing system, comprising: at least eight triaxial magnetometer (TM) sensors with one of said TM sensors positioned at each vertex of a cubic space, each of said TM sensors having X, Y, Z magnetic sensing axes, said TM sensors positioned such that respective ones of said X, Y, Z magnetic sensing axes are mutually parallel to one another, each of said TM sensors measuring a local magnetic field associated with a target region and generating magnetic field data indicative thereof; processing means coupled to said TM sensors for (a) processing said magnetic field data in accordance with a magnetic scalar triangulation and ranging (STAR) processing scheme to determine a plurality of gradient contractions C T,I at a corresponding plurality of measurement points I to include at least at the center of each face of said cubic space wherein gradient contraction pairs (C T,+X and C T,−X ), (C T,+Y and C T,−Y ) and (C T,+Z and C T,−Z ) are defined for each of said X, Y, Z magnetic sensing axes along corresponding X, Y and Z baselines with each of said gradient contraction pairs being symmetrically disposed about the center of said cubic space, and wherein said gradient contractions from each of said gradient contraction pairs are separated by a corresponding baseline distance ΔS X , ΔS Y and ΔS Z along one of said X, Y and Z baselines, (b) determining a directional derivative ∇C T using said gradient contraction pairs and said baseline distances, (c) calculating a unit vector using said directional derivative ∇C T , (d) determining a projection distance from each of said measurement points toward the target region wherein each said projection distance is a function of said unit vector and one of said baseline distances ΔS X , ΔS Y and ΔS Z , and (e) processing each said projection distance in accordance with said STAR processing scheme to determine first values of (i) a position vector from the center of said cubic space to the target region, and (ii) a magnetic moment vector; and output generation means coupled to said processing means for generating at least one of a human-discernable output and a computer-discernable output of said first values.