Design and Development of a Low-Cost Optical Current Sensor

In this paper we demonstrate the design of a low-cost optical current sensor. The sensor principle is the Faraday rotation of a light beam through a magneto-optical material, SF2, when a magnetic field is present. The prototype has a high sensitivity and a high linearity for currents ranging from 0 up to 800 A. The error of the optical fibre sensor is smaller than 1% for electric currents over 175 A.This work has been sponsored by the institutions Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad under project TEC2009-147-C03-01, TEC2012-37983-C03-01, Gobierno Vasco/Eusko Jaurlaritza under projects AIRHEM-II, S-PE12CA001, IT664-13, and by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) through program UFI11/16