Hall Effect Sensor for Animal Geomagnetic Navigation

Authors: Sachs F*

DOI: 10.23880/aabsc-16000165

Volume 4, Issue 2

Abstract

The magnetic compass has been a valuable human navigation tool for hundreds of years. Yet animals are known to align themselves with the earth’s magnetic field without using ferrimagnets [1]. How do they do that? A number of models have been proposed but most are magnetic field sensors but lack the vectorial properties that allow telling north from south. Since animals are diamagnetic it is not obvious how they can tell north from south. Any sensory system to do this must be asymmetric, and there is one well known and commonly used diamagnetic sensor, the Hall Effect, whereby a charge flow in one direction with an orthogonal B field will induce a further orthogonal potential.

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