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Abstract

An electronic magnetic compass for computing the magnetic heading of a vehicle, such as a tank, having two iron bodies relatively movable with respect to each other about a vertical rotary axis comprises: a non-pendulous triaxial magnetometer outputting magnetic field electrical signals representing the three axial components of the magnetic field at the location of the magnetometer; sensors outputting electrical signals representing the pitch and roll of the vehicle body on which the sensors are mounted; an angle measuring device for outputting electrical signals corresponding to the angle of rotation between the two bodies; a memory for storing a plurality of pre-calibrated correction factors for correcting the effects of the permanent magnetic field and the induced magnetic field on the measurements of the magnetometer for each of a plurality of angles of rotation between the two bodies; and an electronic computer for computing on a real-time basis the magnetic heading of both bodies from the magnetic field electrical signals as corrected by the stored correction factors for the respective angle of rotation, together with the pitch, roll and rotation angles electrical signals inputted into the computer.

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First Claim