Investigations on Circuit Requirements to Enhance the Bandwidth of Point-Field Detectors Used as Current Sensor

University Of North Carolina At Charlotte, Charlotte NC

Investigators

Abstract

Power electronics is an integral part of today's power delivery systems such as renewable energy systems, electric vehicles, data centers and most consumer electronics. In these applications, electric current information is often an essential parameter that needs to be known and measured for control, diagnostic and prognostic purposes. With advances in power electronic circuits with specific attention to high frequency power converters, there is a need to investigate alternative approaches and techniques to measure the current. These approaches should result in availability of current sensors that have fast-response, are accurate, loss-less, and preferably non-intrusive. This project investigates techniques and methods to create a platform to develop current sensing schemes that can be utilized in high frequency power electronic circuits or integrated in power semiconductor modules. It is expected that the research conducted as part of this project will result in contactless current sensors with an order of magnitude performance improvement over state-of-the-art technologies. Today, there is no current sensor that can be used in many power electronics systems optimized to operate with switching frequencies beyond 1MHz. This research will address the need and requirements for such sensors. The objective of this research is to investigate contactless integrated current sensing techniques for high frequency, high voltage power electronic systems. The research in this project will involve investigating materials and techniques that respond to the magnetic field produced by the current in a printed circuit board trace. In particular, very high bandwidth current sensors using Magneto-Resistor (MR) and a miniaturized inductor together with complementary characteristics will be investigated. This research will address the challenges of measurements due to asymmetrical current distribution and significantly non-uniform magnetic field around the trace at frequencies beyond 1MHz. The proposed approach is achieved through properly shaping and amplifying the magnetic field with Magnetic field CONcentrators (MCON) to avoid circuit board layout modifications. Different MCON configurations with respect to spatial and material parameters will be studied through simulation and hardware experimentation.