Mini-Bumblebee

Mini-Bumblebee was developed with the goal of creating a complete, simple, and low-cost system for mapping low-field magnets, making it particularly suitable for workshops, teaching environments, and similar use cases.

A key challenge in conventional mapping systems is the reliance on commercial, high-priced Hall sensors. In contrast, we can now replace these with an 8-channel Hall sensor that we developed ourselves, with material costs of only a few euros.

Large, cubic, and calibrated robot systems (such as COSI-Measure) work extremely well for mapping large Halbach arrays, but they are often too complex for smaller prototypes or training applications. With the motion-tracking approach we developed, we can perform accurate mapping even with inexpensive and less precise robot arms, which can be built or purchased at significantly lower cost. The tracking system can also be used to calibrate and debug larger robots.

The entire system is available on our GitHub, along with detailed instructions for each subsystem (1. Hall sensor, 2. robot, 3. motion tracking, 4. B₀ mapping). This modular structure allows individual components to be easily replicated and improved, for example, if only the Hall sensor is required.