Study of an inductive sensor for measuring high frequency current pulses

The objective of this paper is to present a simple sensor based on Faraday’s Law together with an integration and amplifying stage and used this for measuring fast current pulses. Its behavior in time and frequency is tested by measuring Partial Discharges (PD) in electric insulation systems following the guidelines given in the standard IEC 60270. The measurements are also taken with two other sensors, a commercial high frequency current transformer and a resistive transducer, with the aim of comparing the results obtained with the proposed probe and obtaining an estimation of its sensitivity. An estimation of the uncertainty of the measurements is also calculated obtaining an error similar to other commercial devices.This research was supported by the Spanish Science and Technology Ministry under contract DPI 2009-14628-C03-02