Biomagnetic sensor
AssigneeToyota Research Institute, Inc.
InventorAbraham S. Anapolsky
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Motor vehicles use biomagnetic sensors to determine global position by detecting Earth's geomagnetic field. Magnetosensitive bioparticles, such as magnetotactic bacteria or organelles from a magnetoreceptive eukaryotic species, are dispersed in a gel medium. The magnetosensitive bioparticles generate a local magnetic moment that changes in response to fluctuations in the immediate geomagnetic field vector, the latter of which is dependent on global position. An integrated circuit, such as an array of superconducting quantum detects changes in the local magnetic moment, and a controller thereby determines the ambient geomagnetic field vector. The controller accesses a database having a correlation of geomagnetic field vector and geolocation.
Claims15
A navigation system for a motor vehicle requiring no external data source, the navigation system comprising:
- a viscous medium positioned on a surface;
- a magnetosensitive bioparticle dispersed in the gel medium and producing a local magnetic moment in the gel medium;
- and
- an integrated circuit comprising an array of magnetometers placed in proximity to the magnetosensitive bioparticles, to detect changes in the local magnetic moment, thereby detecting fluctuations in an ambient magnetic field that induce changes in the local magnetic moment.
A biomagnetic sensor apparatus comprising:
- a gel medium harboring a continuous suspension of magnetosensitive bioparticles having a variable magnetic dipole moment vector, the variable magnetic dipole moment vector changing in response to variations in an ambient magnetic field vector;
- and
- an integrated circuit configured to detect changes in the variable magnetic dipole moment vector, thereby detecting variations in the ambient magnetic field vector.
A method for determining a current position on Earth, the method comprising:
- detecting an ambient geomagnetic field vector using a magnetosensitive bioparticle dispersed in a gel medium and producing a local magnetic moment in the gel medium, the magneto sensitive bioparticle;
- indexing the ambient magnetic field vector to a database having a correlation of ambient geomagnetic field vector and geolocation;
- and
- determining a current position based on the correlation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.