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

电力电子是当今电力输送系统的一个组成部分，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，电流信息往往是一个重要的参数，需要知道和测量控制，诊断和预测的目的。随着电力电子电路的进步，特别是对高频电源转换器的关注，有必要研究测量电流的替代方法和技术。这些方法将导致电流传感器的可用性，这些传感器具有快速响应，准确，无损，最好是非侵入性的。该项目研究技术和方法，以创建一个平台，以开发可用于高频电力电子电路或集成在功率半导体模块中的当前传感方案。预计作为该项目的一部分进行的研究将导致非接触式电流传感器的性能比最先进的技术提高一个数量级。目前，没有电流传感器可以用于许多电力电子系统中，这些系统经过优化，可以在超过1MHz的开关频率下工作。这项研究将解决这种传感器的需求和要求。本研究的目的是研究高频、高压电力电子系统的非接触式集成电流传感技术。该项目的研究将涉及对印刷电路板中电流产生的磁场作出反应的材料和技术。特别是，使用磁电阻（MR）和小型化电感以及互补特性的非常高带宽电流传感器将被研究。本研究将解决在频率超过1MHz时，由于电流分布不对称和迹线周围明显不均匀的磁场而导致的测量挑战。该方法通过磁场集中器（MCON）适当地塑造和放大磁场来实现，避免了电路板布局的修改。通过模拟和硬件实验研究不同的MCON结构在空间和材料参数方面的影响。

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.