The optimization of dual-core closed-loop fluxgate technology in precision current

sensor
Xiaoguang Yang, Bo Zhang, Youhua Wang, Zhigang Zhao, and Weili Yan

Citation: Journal of Applied Physics 111, 07E722 (2012); doi: 10.1063/1.3677200

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3677200
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/111/7?ver=pdfcov
Published by the AIP Publishing

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 JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 111, 07E722 (2012)

The optimization of dual-core closed-loop fluxgate technology

in precision current sensor
Xiaoguang Yang,a) Bo Zhang, Youhua Wang, Zhigang Zhao, and Weili Yan
Province-Ministry Joint Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Field and Electrical Apparatus Reliability,
Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, 300130, People’s Republic of China
(Presented 3 November 2011; received 23 September 2011; accepted 14 November 2011; published
online 7 March 2012)
This paper presents a new dual-core closed-loop flux gate current sensor. The mathematical model
was built, and the parameters that affect the characteristics of the flux gate current sensor were
analyzed. The effects of the structural parameters on output characteristics of the sensor were
simulated. Based on the simulation results, a prototype was designed, and the test results have a
模型
good agreement with the simulation results. The current sensor has the advantages of ultra low
nonlinear error ( 6 3%) and low offset error. The noise in the primary current is eliminated when
measuring dc or ac signal. Especially, the designed dual-core closed-loop flux gate current sensor
can measure current up to 20 kHz with the nominal primary current value of 6 30 A. V C 2012

American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3677200]

I. INTRODUCTION
The main methods used to measure electric currents are
shunt resistors, current transformers, Hall-effect transducers,
Rogowski coils, flux gate current sensor, and magnetoresistors.
A more detailed description and comparison of these methods
can be found in Ref. 1–5. Flux gate transducers are widely
used in dc or low-frequency current measurements, they offer
a wide range of new applications and present a high potential
for future applications.6
Various structures of flux gate current sensor have been
reported. Azzoni et al. designed a flux gate current sensor by
measuring the intervals to reach inductor saturation and the
load current with a microcontroller.7 Velasco-Quesada et al.
presented a low power consumption flux gate transducer by
the use of a high-efficiency flyback dc-dc power converter.8
Firri et al. present a complete low-voltage, low-power, and
high linearity CMOS interface circuit for flux gate magnetic FIG. 1. Optimized structure of dual-core closed-loop flux gate current sensor.
current sensor.9 Sharafi and Nekoui designed a new ring core
flux gate sensor, in which the operating current requirements
and power consumption are significantly reduced.10 Koseki
et al. proposed to use information of the frequency of the
secondary excitation voltage of the flux gate direct current
sensor for coarse measurements of substantially larger exter-
nal primary current.11

II. DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF FLUXGATE CURRENT

SENSOR
The basic operating principle of the flux gate current sen-
sor can be found in Ref. 12.
The flux gate current sensor proposed in this paper is
based on dual-core closed-loop flux gate technology. The
structure of the flux gate current sensor is shown in Fig. 1.

a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail:
xgyang@hebut.edu.cn. FIG. 2. Profile of the structure of magnetic cores and windings.

0021-8979/2012/111(7)/07E722/3/$30.00 111, 07E722-1 C 2012 American Institute of Physics

V

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 07E722-2 Yang et al. J. Appl. Phys. 111, 07E722 (2012)

described as the sum of two independent current sources,

that is He ðtÞ ¼ Hm1 sin x1 t þ Hm2 cos x1 t, where Hm1 and
Hm2 are the amplitude, andx1 is the angular frequency.
The magnetic field intensity Hp in the two magnetic
cores is caused by the primary current, and the directions of
Hp and Ip correspond with right hand corkscrew rule. The two
excitation windings (We1 and We2 in Fig. 1) are winded
clockwise and anticlockwise, therefore the total magnetic
field intensity in C1 can be described as:H1 ðtÞ ¼ Hp þ He ðtÞ.
FIG. 3. Voltage waveform of the sensing resistor when Ip ¼ 3 A.
Based on Eq. (1), the EMF of winding Ws1 (in Fig. 1) can be
derived as
  
  dlðtÞ d Hp þ He ðtÞ
Es1 ðtÞ ¼ Ns Sl0 Hp þ He ðtÞ þ lðtÞ :
dt dt
(2)

Similarly, the EMF of winding Ws2, Es2(t), can be obtained.

The total induced EMF in Ws1 and Ws2 can be expressed
as
FIG. 4. FFT waveform of the sensing voltage.
dlðtÞ
E ¼ Es1 ðtÞ þ Es2 ðtÞ ¼ 2Ns Sl0 Hp : (3)
dt
By applying Fourier series method, the permeability of mag-
netic core can be described as
X
1
lðtÞ ¼ lc þ l2n cos 2nw1 t; (4)
n¼1

where lc is the constant component, and l2n the amplitude

FIG. 5. (Color online) (a) Excitation voltage waveform of the designed self- of nth even harmonic. We can obtain the sum of the even
oscillating circuit and (b) voltage waveform of the sensing resistor when harmonic voltage EðtÞ based on Eqs. (3) and (4)
Ip ¼ 3 A.
Ip X1
EðtÞ ¼ 4Ns Sl0 w1 l n sin 2nw1 t: (5)
Based on Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction, l n¼1 2n
the induced electromagnetic force (EMF) is given by
E ¼ N dU dB
dt ¼ NS dt , where U is the magnetic flux,
By using spectrum analysis (Fourier transform), it reveals
B ¼ l0 lðtÞHðtÞ the magnetic flux density, l0 is the perme- that the power spectral density of the second harmonic is
ability of vacuum, and lðtÞ is the relative magnetic perme- larger than that of the other even harmonics. On the other
ability. thus, we can obtain the following expression: hand, measuring of the second harmonic can effectively
restrain the output of zero frequency noise by the exciting os-
  cillator and reduce high-order harmonics of the output. Thus,
dlðtÞ dHðtÞ
E ¼ Ns Sl0 HðtÞ þ lðtÞ ; (1) we extract the second harmonic as the effective signal. The
dt dt
voltage of the second harmonic can be expressed as

where Ns is the turn number of secondary winding. The Ip

E2 ðtÞ ¼ 4Ns Sl0 w1 l sin 2w1 t: (6)
exciting alternative magnetic field intensity He can be l 2

FIG. 6. (Color online) (a) Conic fitting

curve of the full-scale dc current mea-
surement and (b) relative error of the
full-scale dc current measurement.

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 07E722-3 Yang et al.
FIG. 7. Small signal frequency response of the flux gate current sensor.
The above equation shows that the output second harmonic
voltage of the dual-core flux gate sensor is proportional to
the primary current.
In order to use the sensor for monitoring large load cur-
rent, an additional feedback winding (Wf1 in Fig. 1) is uti-
lized to form a closed-loop system.
When forward channel gain is large enough, the sensi-
tivity is basically determined by the feedback factor. The
most efficient and feasible method to increase the forward
channe1 gain is to add an integrator in the closed-loop sys-
tem. The input of integrator will gradually becomes zero
when Hf ¼ Hp , where Hf is the feedback magnetic field in-
tensity. Then the primary current can be expressed as
Ip ¼ Nf  If , where Nf and If are the turn number and the cur-
rent of the feedback winding, respectively. The output volt-
age of the current sensor can be calculated as
Uout ¼ Rm  If ¼ Rm  Ip =Nf .
Commonly, flux gate current sensors can only measure
dc or low-frequency ac.6 In this paper to measure high fre-
quency ac, a zero-flux current transformer is introduced into
the traditional flux gate current sensor. The zero-flux current
transformer consists of a separate magnetic core winded by a
secondary winding Ws3 and a feedback winding Wf1 as
shown in Fig. 1. With the additional zero-flux current trans-
former, zero flux state can be achieved when high frequency
ac was measured. The configuration of the magnetic cores
and coils is in a special pattern as shown in Fig. 2. This com-
binatorial pattern can significantly reduce EMI, because
magnetic core C3 has shielding effects on external electro-
magnetic field.
III. SIMULATION AND EXPRIMENT RESULTS
Excitation windings are winded around C1 and C2
with 100 turns, respectively. C1 and C2 are identical. The
internal and external diameter of the cores are 12.5 mm and
20 mm, respectively, the height of the cores is 8 mm, and
the inductance of the excitation windings is approximately
150 mH.
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J. Appl. Phys. 111, 07E722 (2012)
For the designed current sensor, the threshold value of
the exciting current is calculated to be about 36.4 mA, which
can guarantee that the two excitation cores reach saturation
regions.
When the primary current Ip ¼ 3 A, and the AC square
excitation voltage source with the frequency of 1 kHz and
the amplitude of 15 V flows through the excitation windings,
the simulation result of voltage waveform of the sensing re-
sistor is obtained as shown in Fig. 3. Based on fast Fourier
transform (FFT), the frequency response of the sensing volt-
age is obtained as shown in Fig. 4. By analyzing the spec-
trum, we can find that the second harmonic (2 kHz) has the
maximal value.
As shown in Fig. 5, the experimental result has a good
agreement with the simulation result (in Fig. 3), when the
primary current Ip ¼ 3 A. The conic fitting curve of full-
scale dc current measurement results is illustrated in Fig.
6(a). And the fitting equation is Uout ¼ 99:5  Ip þ 15, where
Uout is the output voltage of the flux gate current sensor.
The equation shows the linearity is 99.5 and the low offset
error is 15 mA. The output voltage of the designed sensor is
limited to 6 3 V. Figure 6(b) indicates the relative error of
the full-scale dc current measurement. Based on the experi-
mental data, the relative error is limited to 6 3% in the
range from -30 A to 30 A. Figure 7 shows small signal
(0.3 A) frequency response, in the range from dc to 20 kHz,
the relative error is almost zero.
IV. CONCLUSION
Compared with conventional flux gate sensors, in the
new structure, the secondary windings is independent of
the exciting winding. By this way, the noise caused by the
exciting current can be eliminated. We designed an experi-
mental prototype based on the simulation model, and the
experimental results verify the simulation model.
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