Initialization state determination of a magnetic multi-turn sensor

A magnetic multi-turn sensor system with initialization state determination, the magnetic multi-turn sensor system comprising:

• a multi-turn magnetic sensor comprising a magnetic strip, the magnetic strip comprising a plurality of magnetoresistive elements electrically coupled in series, each of the magnetoresistive elements has at least two states where each of the at least two states is associated with a different resistance, the multi-turn magnetic sensor having an initialization state defining an initial magnetic alignment of the magnetoresistive elements at zero turns;
• and
• a processing circuit operatively coupled to the magnetic multi-turn sensor, the processing circuit comprising:
• an initialization state decoder configured to:
• determine that outputs of the multi-turn sensor correspond to a first false state based on a first initialization state;
• in response to determining that the outputs of the multi-turn sensor correspond to the first false state based on the first initialization state, determine that the initialization state is a second initialization state based on the outputs of the of the multi-turn sensor not corresponding to a second false state that is associated with a sensor fault;
• and
• a turn count decoder configured to output a turn count of the multi-turn sensor based on the initialization state and the outputs of the multi-turn magnetic sensor.

A device for determining an initialization state of a magnetic multi-turn sensor, the device comprising:

• a processing circuit operatively coupled to a magnetic multi-turn sensor to receive signals from the magnetic multi-turn sensor, the magnetic multi-turn sensor comprising a magnetic strip comprising a plurality of magnetoresistive elements electrically coupled in series, wherein the magnetic multi-turn sensor is magnetically initialized into an initialization state of at least two valid initialization states, wherein each of the magnetoresistive elements has at least two magnetic alignments each associated with a different resistance, and wherein the initialization state of the magnetic multi-turn sensor defines the magnetic alignments of the magnetoresistive elements at zero turns of the magnetic field with respect to the magnetic multi-turn sensor,
• wherein the processing circuit is configured to:
• determine a first set of magnetic alignments of the magnetoresistive elements at a non-zero number of turns of the magnetic field with respect to the magnetic multi-turn sensor,
• determine that the first set of magnetic alignments corresponds to a first false state for the non-zero number of turns of the magnetic field based on a first valid initialization state of the at least two valid initialization states, and
• in response to determining that the first set of magnetic alignments corresponds to the first false state for the non-zero number of turns of the magnetic field based on the first valid initialization state, determine that the initialization state of the magnetic multi-turn sensor is a second valid initialization state of the at least two valid initialization states based on determining that the first set of magnetic alignments do not correspond to a second false state for the non-zero number of turns of the magnetic field.