Current Sensor in PCB Technology

Abstract

A novel DC/AC current sensor works on the fluxgate principle. The core in the form of a 7/10-mm ring made of electrodeposited permalloy is sandwiched in the middle of a printed circuit board (PCB), whereas the sensor excitation winding is also integrated in the copper layers of the PCB. To lower the sensor power consumption, the excitation winding was tuned by a parallel capacitor. The peak-peak/rms ratio of 5.2 was achieved for the excitation frequency of 25 kHz. The open-loop sensor has 100-mV/A sensitivity; the characteristics have a linearity error of 10% and hysteresis below 0.1% in the 1-A range.