I-Corps: Wideband Contactless Current Sensors

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是引入一种完全集成的电流传感器，其性能比最先进的技术提高了一个数量级。开发的技术将使电力电子系统更加可靠、高效和紧凑。电力电子是当今电力输送系统不可或缺的一部分，例如可再生能源系统、电动汽车、数据中心和大多数消费电子产品。在这些应用中，电流信息通常是为了控制、诊断和预测目的而需要知道和测量的基本参数。随着电力电子电路的发展，特别是对高频功率变流器的关注，有必要研究替代的方法和技术来测量电流。这些方法应能提供具有快速响应、准确、无损耗、最好是非侵入性的电流传感器。这种传感器的影响是使系统和电路能够通过使用宽带隙半导体和高开关频率来实现小型化和更高效。此外，当前测量信息的可用性将带来更大的可靠性和预测能力。应用包括电动汽车和数据中心的电源转换器。这个i-Corps项目将探索当前传感器技术在汽车、电信和数据中心等不同行业的商业潜力。今天，没有电流传感器可以用于许多电力电子系统，也没有集成到优化后的开关频率超过1 MHz的半导体模块中。该项目将通过放弃常用的霍尔效应传感器和使用磁阻来满足对这种传感器的需求和要求。利用专有的IC电路和封装，项目组正在开发带宽高达10 MHz的非接触式、无损传感器，同时克服由于电磁干扰、电流分布不对称和磁场不均匀而带来的测量挑战。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to introduce a fully integrated current sensor with an order of magnitude performance improvement over the state-of-art technologies. The developed technology will enable more reliable, efficient and compact power electronics systems. 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. The impact of such a sensor is to enable systems and circuits that will be miniaturized and more efficient through the use of wide band-gap semiconductors and high switching frequencies. Additionally, the availability of current measurement information will lead to greater reliability and prognostic capability. Applications include power converters in electric vehicles and data centers.This I-Corps project will explore the commercial potential of the current sensor technology in different industry sectors such as automotive, telecommunications, and data centers. Today, there is no current sensor that can be used in many power electronics systems or integrated into semiconductor modules optimized to operate with switching frequencies beyond 1MHz. This project will address the need and requirements for such sensors by moving away from commonly-used Hall-Effect sensors and utilizing magneto-resistors. With proprietary IC circuitry and packaging, the project team is developing contactless, lossless sensors with bandwidths up to 10 MHz, while overcoming the measurement challenges due to EMI, asymmetrical current distributions and non-uniform magnetic field.