Impact of Coreless Current Transformer Position on Current Measurement

Magnetic sensors have been widely used for current measurements in diverse industries. In order to achieve a large current measurement without an iron core structure, magnetic sensors are often arranged to be a circular array for designing a new electronic current transformer (ECT). However, this ECT with a circular array of magnetic sensors usually suffers from tradeoffs between the number of sensors and the measurement accuracy. This paper visualizes this tradeoff and proposes a 3-D magnetic-field model to analyze the impact of the magnetic sensor circular array position on current measurements. We develop an analytical expression of the current measurement errors to estimate the minimum number of required magnetic sensors and point out the acceptable deviations of the ECT position under various accuracy classes. Based on the estimation results, we design a new circular array with eight magnetic sensors and build a three-phase current measurement system. The test results demonstrate the efficiency and the robustness of the designed class-1.0 ECT, which successfully maintains accuracy class 1.0 under various position deviations in balanced or unbalanced three-phase power delivery systems.