Detection technology utilizing local magnetic anomalies of ferromagnetic objects has be come an important trend in target detection. Detection of a magnetic dipole target usually includes determinations of its position and magnetic moment, which contains six scalar unknowns. Localization and magnetic moment estimation is conventionally realized by measuring the total magnetic intensity or magnetic field vectors, using magnetometers installed on a mobile platform. Vector magnetometers are largely used in practices, which measure the three components of the anomaly magnetic field. Either the three components, or the total field (the modulus value of the three components), or the tensor gradients, or a combination of them can be used to construct an optimization algorithm for inversion of the six quantities. We have explored TMR (Tunneling Magneto-resistive) and ME (Magnetoelectric) sensors as a viable one in extremely sensitive vector magnetometer and gradiometer.
