See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/224175804

Design of a Low-Consumption Fluxgate Transducer for High-Current

Measurement Applications

Article in IEEE Sensors Journal · March 2011

DOI: 10.1109/JSEN.2010.2054831 · Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS READS
60 5,669

4 authors, including:

Guillermo Velasco Quesada Manuel Roman

Polytechnic University of Catalonia Polytechnic University of Catalonia
80 PUBLICATIONS 1,399 CITATIONS 23 PUBLICATIONS 731 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Felipe Jerez
TDK Corporation
4 PUBLICATIONS 76 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Guillermo Velasco Quesada on 02 June 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

280 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 11, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2011

Design of a Low-Consumption Fluxgate Transducer

for High-Current Measurement Applications
Guillermo Velasco-Quesada, Member, IEEE, Manuel Román-Lumbreras, Member, IEEE,
Alfonso Conesa-Roca, and Felipe Jeréz

Abstract—This paper presents the design and final realization TABLE I

of a transducer system for the measurement of high dc and ac cur- COMPARISON OF ELECTRIC CURRENT TRANSDUCERS
rents. This transducer is based on the magnetic flux compensation
technique, also called fluxgate principle. The transducer designed
can measure currents of around 1 kA of peak value with a 170-kHz
small-signal bandwidth. This functionality can be achieved with
low power consumption if the designed system is compared with
other fluxgate transducers available on the market and with
similar functional specifications. Improvement in consumption
was achieved by the inclusion in the design of a switching power
supply (based on flyback topology) and a switched amplifier
for generating magnetic flux compensation current (based on
half-bridge inverter topology).
Index Terms—AC and dc current measurement, current trans-
ducer, magnetic field measurement.

I. INTRODUCTION

ANY industrial applications require the measurement of

M electrical currents. These include current measurement
for electric power and energy calculations, for feedback loops in
control systems, and for security devices in order to guarantee Xiao et al. describe and compare some of these methods for
human protection and prevent systems from malfunctioning or electric current measurement [5], and Table I presents a com-
breakdowns. A more detailed description of systems and appli- parison using the most relevant parameters for determining the
cations using current measurement can be found in [1]–[3]. main characteristics of each of them and their usual applications.
Different methods for measuring electrical currents have Although fluxgate sensors first appeared in the early 1930s,
been developed, and they have been based on physical princi- these sensors are still being used in many applications [6]. Flux-
ples (electrical, magnetic, or optical) or they take advantage of gate transducers are widely used in dc or low-frequency current
the behavior of some materials within a magnetic field [4]. measurements, they offer a wide range of new applications and
The most suitable method for measuring electrical current de- present a high potential for future applications [7].
pends, in each case, on the current characteristics: dc current, The transducer described in this paper was jointly developed
ac current, or both simultaneously, frequency ranges, expected by the Technical University of Catalonia and the PREMO Group
peak or maximum value, accuracy, and need for isolation. The in order to meet identified needs in the sector of electric current
main methods used to measure electric currents are: shunt re- measurement. It is a current transducer based on fluxgate tech-
sistors, current transformers, Hall-effect transducers, Rogowski nology providing a better performance with power supply and
coils, fluxgate transducers, and magnetoresistors. energy consumption requirements, in comparison with similar
fluxgate transducers existing on the market.
This transducer was previously introduced in [8], where its
Manuscript received February 15, 2010; revised April 13, 2010; accepted principle of operation and construction were briefly described,
June 18, 2010. Date of publication September 20, 2010; date of current ver- and some of its specifications were characterized. This new
sion November 17, 2010. The associate editor coordinating the review of this
manuscript and approving it for publication was Prof. Okyay Kaynak. paper extends the contents reported in [8] with a detailed de-
G. Velasco-Quesada, M. Roman-Lumbreras, and A. Conesa-Roca are with scription of the transducer operating principle and its practical
the Electronic Engineering Department, Technical University of Catalonia, realization.
Urgell 187, 08036-Barcelona, Spain (e-mail: [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]).
F. Jeréz is with the PREMO Group, Conchita Supervía, 13 08028-Barcelona, II. FLUXGATE TRANSDUCER OPERATING PRINCIPLE
Spain (e-mail: [email protected]). The basic operating principle of these transducers is based on
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. the detection of the saturation state of a magnetic circuit. More
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2010.2054831 details can be found in the specialized literature [9]–[11].
1530-437X/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
VELASCO-QUESADA et al.: LOW-CONSUMPTION FLUXGATE TRANSDUCER FOR HIGH-CURRENT MEASUREMENT APPLICATIONS 281

Fig. 3. Voltage excitation and current waveforms on auxiliary winding under:

Fig. 1. Fluxgate transducer structures. (a) Standard structure. (b) Structure (a) zero flux condition (I = 0) and (b) nonzero flux condition (I > 0).
without gap on the magnetic path.

Fig. 2. Basic operating principle of fluxgate transducers.

Fig. 4. Operating principle of the designed fluxgate transducer.

The so-called “standard” fluxgate transducer uses a toroidal

magnetic circuit which includes an air gap with the element for III. FLUXGATE TRANSDUCER DESIGN AND REALIZATION
magnetic field measurement. This sensing element is also called The designed transducer operates under closed-loop condi-
“saturable inductor” [Fig. 1(a)]. tions, according to the general diagram shown in Fig. 2. A null
The current sensor proposed in this work is based on a varia- value on the average current through the excitation winding
tion of the “standard” fluxgate transducer structure, and it op- is used to determine the zero-flux condition. This operating prin-
erates under closed-loop conditions. This kind of transducer ciple is presented in Fig. 4.
uses its own ring core as a magnetic field detector and includes One important drawback of this structure is the possibility
no gap on the magnetic path [Fig. 1(b)]. An auxiliary winding of noise injection from the excitation winding circuit into the
(normally called excitation winding) is added to the core , primary current circuit. This noise can be coupled into the pri-
which is used as a saturable inductor for flux detection purposes. mary current circuit due to the transformer effect present in the
This structure of the fluxgate transducer is described with more magnetic core of the transducer. The solution usually adopted,
detail in [11] and [12]. in order to avoid this negative influence, is the use of a second
In order to obtain a null magnetic field on the magnetic circuit, core with a new auxiliary winding (or new excitation winding).
a secondary winding must be excited with an appropriate Under ideal conditions, these two cores and their winding must
current, as shown in Fig. 2. In this case, the transducer oper- be identical [11] and [13].
ates on zero-flux condition, and the current imposed on the sec- If these two auxiliary windings ( and ) are excited
ondary winding is directly proportional to the primary cur- with the same current but in opposite directions, then the two
rent . The primary winding is a single wire placed through induced currents on the primary conductor will be equals and
the hole of ring core. The relationship between the primary and with opposite directions, cancelling their effects.
the secondary currents is shown in In this new structure, a secondary winding (used for flux com-
(1) pensation) is common to both auxiliary cores. The transducer
presented in this work is designed on the basis of this structure,
where is the number of turns of the secondary winding. and its block diagram is shown in Fig. 5.
The detection of the zero-flux condition on the transducer A more detailed description of different parts of this system
magnetic circuit is performed by the change of the saturable is included in the paragraphs below.
inductor inductance value. In the absence of the primary cur-
A. Signal Generator for Auxiliary Windings Excitation
rent, the flux through the saturable inductor is zero. Under these
conditions, if a square voltage waveform is applied to the exci- The basic self-oscillating circuit for exciting the auxiliary
tation winding, the current waveform will be as shown in windings is presented in Fig. 6. It is a relaxation oscillator based
Fig. 3(a). on a Schmitt trigger and an RL circuit. The inductor used for this
The primary current effect on the excitation current oscillator is one of the excitation windings and a voltage
implies a nonzero average value, as shown in Fig. 3(b). The av- proportional to excitation current appears on the terminals
erage value and the sign of depend on the value and the direc- of the sensing resistor .
tion of . These effects of the primary current on the excitation Excitation windings are formed by 200-turns coils on two
current are detailed in [11]. toroidal cores. The internal and external diameter of each core is
282 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 11, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2011

Fig. 7. Block diagram of the control circuit.

For an automatic adjustment of the compensation current

value , the use of a PI controller is proposed. If the mag-
netic flux generated by is equal and opposite to the flux
generated by the primary current , the transducer operates
Fig. 5. Block diagram of the designed fluxgate transducer. under zero average flux condition and the average
value of is also zero.
This control strategy is illustrated in Fig. 7, where (the
total magnetic flux in one of the auxiliary cores) is obtained by
the addition of three different fluxes: the magnetic flux gener-
ated by the compensation wiring and the fluxes induced
on the auxiliary core by the primary and the excitation currents
( and , respectively).
The addition of the flows and is noted by and
has an ac component (due to ) and a dc or low-frequency
component (due to ).
With this control scheme, the total magnetic flux average
value , and, consequently, the auxiliary current average
Fig. 6. Circuit for auxiliary wiring excitation.
value is always zero, as is demonstrated by the system
transfer function, noted by as
50 and 60 mm, respectively, and their square section is 64 mm .
The material used for the cores is based on a nanocrystalline
structure with iron base and high permeability, and the induc- where
tance of these two windings is about 300 mH.
The trigger output voltage oscillates between high and low (2)
output levels when the current through excitation winding ex-
ceeds the adjusted threshold values. These threshold values are
calculated in order to guarantee that the two excitation cores The high-pass filter behavior of indicates that only the
reach both saturation regions. In the designed transducer, these ac component of the excitation current appears on the aux-
values are adjusted to 25 mA, approximately. iliary current , ensuring that it has a zero average value.
The oscillation frequency of the oscillator circuit is influ- The described control loop cannot guarantee the correct op-
enced by the electric and magnetic characteristics of excitation eration of the transducer if the excitation cores are strongly sat-
cores, because one of them is included in the oscillator circuit. urated at the system startup. This condition can appear when
The self-oscillating frequency of the designed circuit is close to a nonzero primary current is circulating through the transducer
300 Hz. before it is turned on.
The current driver for exciting both auxiliary windings is As a consequence of strong saturation in the auxiliary core,
based on an integrated circuit which includes a dual monolithic the inductance of the auxiliary winding drops and then, the os-
high-speed power MOSFET driver. cillation frequency of the self-oscillating circuit increases until
An accurate mathematical model of self-oscillating fluxgate reaching some tens of kilohertz. Under these conditions, the sign
current sensor can be found in [14]. of the average value of is independent of the primary current
direction.
B. Excitation Current Symmetry Detector To avoid this important drawback, an additional feedback
As described in Section II, the excitation current average loop is included in the control system circuit. For all initial
value is zero in the absence of primary current conditions, this new loop guarantees that zero-flux condition is
, and a nonzero primary current leads to a nonzero reached when the transducer is switched on.
excitation current average value. The sign of the excitation The operation of this new loop is based on the property of
current average value is related to the primary current direction. mentioned previously: the frequency of the excitation current is
VELASCO-QUESADA et al.: LOW-CONSUMPTION FLUXGATE TRANSDUCER FOR HIGH-CURRENT MEASUREMENT APPLICATIONS 283

Fig. 9. (a) Continuous winding and (b) progressive winding techniques.

Fig. 8. Excitation circuit for secondary current generation.

The PWM circuit generates a square voltage waveform with a
duty cycle proportional to the PI controller or to the output
high when the transducer operates under high saturation condi- signal of the LF triangular waveform oscillator. This voltage is
tions, but it is close to the self-oscillation frequency when the applied to the secondary winding through a current driver based
transducer operates near zero-flux conditions. on a half-bridge inverter. The current driver circuit is imple-
As Fig. 5 shows, this loop includes a low-frequency trian- mented with two N-channel-type MOSFETs and one on-chip
gular waveform generator, a frequency detector circuit and an integrated half-bridge gate driver.
analog switch controlled by the frequency detector circuit. The The switching frequency used is 50 kHz, because it is a fre-
frequency detector circuit is based on a high- bandpass filter quency above the human acoustic threshold and it implies a neg-
(tuned with self-oscillation frequency) and a voltage comparator ligible secondary current ripple . This current ripple can
as a peak detector. be estimated by
While the transducer does not operate near zero-flux condi-
tion, the input of the current compensation driver is con- (3)
nected to the low-frequency triangular waveform generator. The
use of this waveform generates a current sweep through the where is the inductance of the secondary winding, is
compensation winding which guarantees reaching the zero-flux the voltage applied to the secondary winding, is the driver
condition. When the transducer operates near zero-flux condi- switching frequency, and is the duty cycle of the voltage
tion, the frequency of is near the self-oscillation frequency waveform generated by the PWM circuit.
and the output of the frequency detector circuit is activated. Secondary current ripple depends on the duty cycle value, and
Then, the analog switch connects the PI controller to the input it takes the maximum value when . In this case, (3) can
of the current compensation driver. be rewritten as
The utilization of this additional control loop increases the
robustness of system because it ensures that the system will al- (4)
ways reach zero-flux condition after transient situations.
For the designed transducer, the maximum value of the sec-
C. Valid Measure Indicator ondary current ripple can be estimated to be about 10 A.
On the other hand, the number of turns of the secondary coil
The output of the low-frequency detector circuit is connected
defines the sensor output voltage sensitivity, and its maximum
to a valid measurement indicator circuit. This indication is acti-
value is limited by the effects of the parasitic self-capacitance on
vated when the frequency is close to the self-oscillating fre-
this coil [6]. The transformer winding capacitance is detrimental
quency, and this effect occurs when the transducer operates near
in three ways [15]: 1) it can drive the transformer into premature
zero-flux condition.
resonance; 2) it can produce large current spikes when operates
The elements used for a valid measure indication are one
from a square voltage source; and 3) it can produce electrostatic
light-emitting diode (LED) and one single-pole double-throw
coupling to other circuits.
(SPDT) electromagnetic relay.
The sensitivity of output voltage for the designed transducer
is specified to 1000:1 (1000 A of primary current will be com-
D. Driver for Secondary Current Generation
pensated with a 1-A secondary current). This specification im-
The traditional excitation circuits for secondary winding plies the use of 1000 turns for the construction of the secondary
consist of a current driver based on linear amplifiers. coil. For this reason, the self-capacitance of secondary coil must
For the implementation of the proposed transducer, a class-D be minimized using a careful design for the construction of this
amplifier has been used as a secondary current driver. These coil.
kinds of amplifiers are based on pulsewidth modulator (PWM) One way to reduce the self-capacitance effect on toroidal coils
circuits and half-bridge inverters, as shown in Fig. 8. These is by means of a progressive winding technique, rather than the
amplifiers have the advantage of high energy efficiency, but usual continuous winding technique [15].
they also include harmonic components related to its switching Continuous winding and one example of a progressive
frequency. winding technique are shown in Fig. 9.
284 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 11, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2011

Fig. 11. Designed fluxgate transducer.

IV. TEST RESULTS

Fig. 10. Transformer and windings utilized on the designed transducer.
Fig. 11 illustrates the final appearance of the designed trans-
ducer, where the main components of the system can be iden-
tified: measuring transformer, printed circuit board (PCB), and
The progressive winding technique proposes to wind a certain
box to contain all of the transducer elements.
number of turns in one direction (forward), then wind half of
In order to evaluate the performance of the designed trans-
turns on the opposite direction (backward), and finally repeat
ducer, some laboratory tests were conducted. This section
this procedure until winding is completed.
presents the results obtained in some of these experimental
For example, in the case of designed transducer, the self-ca-
tests.
pacity in the secondary winding is reduced by a factor of 30
The first test consisted of full-scale dc current measure-
when the progressive winding technique is used instead of a con- ment, the second one determined the small-signal bandwidth
tinuous winding technique. of system, the third one evaluated the system response for
Finally, the output voltage of the transducer is measured on a high-level current transients, and, finally, the last test compared
shunt resistor connected in series with secondary winding. the power consumption between the designed system and one
The circuit formed by the inductance of coil and oper- commercial fluxgate transducer from the leading company.
ates as a low-pass current filter, so the output voltage is propor-
tional to the primary current. A. DC Current Measurement
For this test, the primary current was generated by a dc power
source, and it was adjusted by a programmable dc active load.
E. AC Current Measurement
Primary current was measured by a noninductive shunt (20 A/60
mV), and its value was utilized as a reference. Furthermore, this
Fluxgate transducers are only suitable for measurements of dc
current was coupled to the transducer through 30 turns, so that
or low-frequency ac currents, because the maximum bandwidth
current measured by transducer was 30 times larger than the
which can be reached is around 100 Hz [7]. The maximum fre- current measured by the shunt. Finally, the output resistor value
quency for ac current measurements is imposed by the operating utilized for this test was 1 .
frequency of the zero-flux detection circuit. The following equation corresponds to the linear regression
For medium or high-frequency ac currents measurement, and of the measured input-to-output current characteristic:
in order to improve the current sensor dynamic response, a third
core is included on the transducer transformer [11]. This new (5)
ring core is only embraced by the secondary winding as
shown in Fig. 10. This result indicates good system linearity (0.999) and low
The combination of this new core, the secondary winding, offset error (around 10 mA).
and the primary current wire operates exclusively as a conven- Fig. 12 shows the relative error in the measurement. This error
tional current transformer, and this feature guarantees medium is referred to the system full-scale. Accordingly with the ob-
and high-frequency current measurement. tained data, the relative error is around 0.2% in 700 A to 700 A
range.

F. Transducer Power Supply B. Small-Signal Bandwidth

For this second test, the primary current was generated by a
Usually, bidirectional current transducers need a regulated linear amplifier from a function generator. Primary current was
and symmetrical bipolar voltage power supply (values of 15 V measured by a shunt resistor, and this value was used as a ref-
and 15 V are typical). In order to relax these specifications, the erence. Furthermore, this current was coupled to the transducer
designed transducer incorporates a power supply based on a fly- through two turns, so that the current measured by the trans-
back dc/dc converter. This converter generates a stable output ducer was twice that of the current measured by the shunt.
voltages ( 12 V and 12 V) from a single and unregulated The frequency response of system under small-signal con-
input voltage, which can be between 10–30 V. ditions is shown in Fig. 13. The primary current used for this
VELASCO-QUESADA et al.: LOW-CONSUMPTION FLUXGATE TRANSDUCER FOR HIGH-CURRENT MEASUREMENT APPLICATIONS 285

Fig. 14. Experimental waveforms of measured current for primary current step
(from 0 to 600 A) and frequency: (a) 100 Hz and (b) 1 kHz.

Fig. 12. Measured relative output error of the designed transducer.

Fig. 15. Edge details of measured current for primary current step from 0 to
300 A.

around 20 A per microsecond. This slope on the current varia-

Fig. 13. Small-signal frequency response of the designed transducer.
tion is imposed by the limitations of current generator utilized
in this test and not by the dynamic response of the designed
transducer.
test was a sinusoidal waveform with 7 A of amplitude; this am-
D. Power Consumption
plitude was the 1% of the transducer primary current nominal
value. Fig. 16 shows the power consumed by the designed trans-
As can be seen, the small-signal bandwidth of the designed ducer as a function of the primary current. This figure also shows
transducer can be estimated to be about 170 kHz. the power consumed by other fluxgate transducer available on
the market and with similar characteristics to those of the de-
C. Transient Current Measurement signed transducer. Table II provides a summary of main features
of transducers used in this comparative test.
This test was carried out in order to evaluate the response The experimental setup utilized to perform this test is the
of the designed transducer to fast transitions on the primary same as that used for the test described in paragraph 4.1. In this
current. A square waveform between 0–600 A was utilized as new test, the power consumption of the transducer under test
a primary current, and a 3- resistor was utilized as a shunt was measured and stored by a digital power meter.
resistor . For this resistor, and accordingly with (1), the Fig. 16 shows that the power consumed by the designed
output voltage on the output shunt resistor can be calcu- transducer is always smaller than the power consumed by
lated as the LEM transducer. The difference between consumptions
is around 0.5 W for zero primary current, but this difference
(6) increases over 2 W for certain ranges of the primary current.
These differences imply that the power consumed by the
Fig. 14 shows the current measured by the designed trans- designed transducer is 15% lower in the whole measurement
ducer when the frequency of the primary current is 100 Hz and range, reaching 50% of the power consumed for some ranges
1 kHz. of the primary current, as is shown in Fig. 17.
Fig. 15 shows the details of rising and falling edges on the Fig. 17 shows power consumption ratio of the LEM trans-
measured current when primary current is a square waveform ducer with reference to the designed transducer consumption.
between 0–300 A. The slope of these edges can be estimated to This power ratio is represented versus the primary current value.
286 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 11, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2011

(flyback topology). This strategy allows us to relax the specifi-

cations for supply voltage because only one unregulated power
source is needed for the system power supply.
On the other hand, the driver for generating the compensation
current is also based on a high-efficiency switching converter
(half-bridge inverter topology).
These two design strategies allow the designed transducer
to present lower power consumption than the other tested
transducer.
Experimental tests were conducted in order to verify the cor-
rect operation of the designed transducer and some of the ob-
tained results are presented.
Finally, the main characteristics of the designed transducer
are summarized here.
• Nominal primary current: 700 A.
Fig. 16. Power consumptions of the designed transducer and other similar
transducer versus the primary current value. • Maximum peak primary current: 1 kA.
• Conversion ratio: 1000:1.
• Small-signal bandwidth (1% of nominal primary current):
TABLE II 170 kHz.
MAIN FEATURES OF FLUXGATE TRANSDUCERS UTILIZED FOR TEST
• Supply voltage: from 10 to 30 VDC.
• Standby power consumption : 3.1 W.
In order to obtain a more detailed characterization of the de-
signed current transducer, reference DCT-700 A can be con-
sulted on the general datasheet of PREMO Group [1].1
Some parts of the presented transducer are protected by the
Spanish patent referenced as P200701317.

REFERENCES
[1] “Power Electronics Inductive Components, General Catalogue,”
PREMO Group, 2008.
[2] “Industry Current & Voltage Transducers,” LEM Int. USA, CH 28100
E/US, 2008.
[3] “Application Guide: Electrical Measurement in Automation Industry,”
LEM Components, CH 25103 E, 2005.
[4] J. Lenz and A. S. Edelstein, “Magnetic sensors and their applications,”
IEEE Sensors J., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 631–649, Jun. 2006.
[5] C. Xiao, L. Zhao, T. Asada, W. G. Odendaal, and J. D. van Wyk, “An
overview of integratable current sensor technologies,” in Proc. 38th IAS
Annual Meeting Conf. Rec. Industry Applic. Conf., Salt Lake City, UT,
Oct. 12–16, 2003, vol. 2, pp. 1251–1258.
[6] P. Ripka, “Advances in fluxgate sensors,” Sens. Actuators A, Phys., vol.
106, pp. 8–14, 2003.
[7] Kaluza, A. Grüger, and H. Grüger, “New and future applications of
fluxgate sensors,” Sens. Actuators A, Phys., vol. 106, pp. 48–51, 2006.
[8] M. Román, G. Velasco, A. Conesa, and F. Jeréz, “Low consumption
flux-gate transducer for AC and DC high-current measurement,” in
Proc. IEEE Power Electron. Specialists Conf., Rhodes, Greece, Jun.
15–19, 2008, pp. 535–540.
[9] P. Ripka, “Review of fluxgate sensors,” Sens. Actuators A, Phys., vol.
33, pp. 129–141, 1992.
Fig. 17. Power consumption ratio of compared transducers versus the primary [10] P. Ripka and M. Janosek, “Advances in magnetic sensors,” in Proc.
current value. IEEE Sensors Conf., Lecce, Italy, Oct. 26–29, 2008, pp. 1–4.
[11] “Isolated Current and Voltage Transducers: Characteristics—Appli-
cations—Calculations (3rd Edition),” LEM Components, CH 24101
E/US, 2004.
V. CONCLUSION [12] P. Ripka, J. Kubik, M. Duffy, W. G. Hurley, and S. O’Reilly, “Current
sensor in PCB technology,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 433–438,
In this paper, the design of a current transducer based on flux- Jun. 2005.
gate principle has been proposed and its final realization has [13] T. Sonoda, R. Ueda, and K. Koga, “An ac and dc current sensor of
been presented. high accuracy,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 1087–1094,
Sep./Oct. 1992.
The main objective of the transducer design is to improve [14] M. M. Ponjavić and R. M. -Durić, “Nonlinear modelling of the self-
the specifications of power supply system, maintaining the rest oscillating fluxgate current sensor,” IEEE Sensors J., vol. 7, no. 11, pp.
of specifications at the same level of other similar transducers 1546–1553, Nov. 2007.
available on the market. [15] W. T. McLyman, Transformer and Inductor Design Handbook, 3rd
ed. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2004, p. 532.
This objective was achieved through the use of a switching
power supply based on high-efficiency dc/dc power converter 1Available. Online: http://www.grupopremo.com.
VELASCO-QUESADA et al.: LOW-CONSUMPTION FLUXGATE TRANSDUCER FOR HIGH-CURRENT MEASUREMENT APPLICATIONS 287

Guillermo Velasco-Quesada (S’04–M’09) was Alfonso Conesa-Roca was born in Barcelona,

born in Barcelona, Spain. He received the Ingeniero Spain. He received the Ingeniero en Electrónica
Técnico Industrial en Electricidad, the Ingeniero and Doctor en Ingeniería Electrónica degrees from
en Electrónica, and Doctor en Ingeniería Elec- the Universidad Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC),
trónica degrees from the Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona, Spain, in 1998 and 2006, respectively.
Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 1990, 2002, He is currently an Associate Professor with the
and 2008, respectively. Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica, Escuela
Since 1992, he has been an Associate Professor Universitaria de Ingeniería Técnica Industrial de
with the Departamento de Ingeniería Electrónica, Es- Barcelona, UPC. His current research interests
cuela de Ingeniería Tecnica Industrial de Barcelona, include switching-mode power supplies, power
UPC, Barcelona, Spain, where he teaches analog and architectures, resonant conversion, and photovoltaic
power electronics. He is a Researcher with the Energy Processing and Integrated applications.
Circuits (EPIC) Group and the Power Electronics Research Center (PERC) of Dr. Conesa is a member of the IEEE Sensors Council.
the UPC. His main research interest includes analysis, modeling and control of
power systems for renewable energy applications, and grid-connected PV sys-
tems based on reconfigurable topologies.
Dr. Velasco is a member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics and IEEE Power Felipe Jeréz was born in Málaga, Spain. He received
Electronics Societies. the Industrial Tech Engineering degree from Málaga
Technical University, Málaga, Spain, in 1994.
Since 1995, he has been involved with R&D ac-
tivities, first with PREDAN, where he was involved
Manuel Román-Lumbreras (M’09) was born in with RFID component and systems, in 2005 he was
Gallur, Spain. He received the Ingeniero Industrial involved in R&D activities at PREMO China, and
en Electricidad and the Doctor Ingeniero Indus- since 2006 he has been leading the R&D team of the
trial degrees from the Universitat Politècnica de PREMO Group, Barcelona, Spain, as CTO of the
Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 1975 and company. Recently, PREMO has been developing
2006, respectively. a new generation of products working very closely
From 1977 to 2000, he was an Assistant Pro- with universities in Barcelona (UPC, UB), Málaga (UMA), and Madrid (UPM).
fessor with the UPC and, since 2001, he has been His main research areas includes power product development for automotive
an Associate Professor with the Departamento de applications, especially for electric and hybrid vehicle, advanced current
Ingeniería Electrónica, UPC. From 1965 to 2000, he transducer applications, energy harvesting micro-devices, and RFID antennas
was working in the industry in the area of electrical for automotive applications.
energy production, railway power traction systems, ac and dc motor drives,
electric power quality, and power converters for uninterruptible power supplies
and active power filters. His actual research interests are power electronics,
electric power network quality, converters for renewable energy systems, and
digital control of power converters.
Dr. Roman is a member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics, IEEE Industrial
Applications, and IEEE Power Electronics Societies.

View publication stats