Research on measuring methods and sensors of high voltage DC electric field

Measuring the intensity of electric field is significant for many applications in power system, so DC electric field measurement has been a major subject over the past half century. While, because of some special properties, such as high field amplitude, space charged ions and the complicated electromagnetic environment, it's very difficult to design a sensitive and accurate DC electric field sensors (EFS). According to working principle, EFSs can be classified into two categories, the mechanical vibrating type and the electro-optical type. In recent years, the MEMS technology has been used to fabricate EFS, and gigantic achievement has been made. In this paper, the mechanisms of these three main kinds of the EFS were introduced, including the rotating electric field mill, MEMS electrostatic field meter and the integrated Optical E-field Sensor. The characteristics and perormances were thoroughly compared.