Patent ID: 8575929

Claim:
A magnetic anomaly surveillance system, comprising: a plurality of triaxial magnetometer (TM) sensors with each of said TM sensors having X,Y,Z magnetic sensing axes, said TM sensors arranged in an array with respective ones of said X,Y,Z magnetic sensing axes being mutually parallel to one another in said array, each of said TM sensors at a known location in a coordinate system; a processor coupled to each of said TM sensors for generating a scalar magnitude of a magnetic anomaly field measured at each of said TM sensors, wherein each said scalar magnitude is indicative of a spherical radius centered at said known location associated with a corresponding one of said TM sensors, generating a comparison between each said scalar magnitude and a threshold value, and determining at least one magnetic anomaly location in said coordinate system via a spherical trilateration process that uses each said spherical radius and each said scalar magnitude associated with selected ones of said TM sensors for which said threshold value is exceeded; and at least one output device coupled to said processor for outputting data indicative of said at least one magnetic anomaly location.