New Approaches to Improve the Performance of Inductive Current Sensors

Inductive current sensors are established to measure the current waveform of fast semiconductors for switching characterization. A high bandwidth, low additional stray inductance and an easy use of the sensor are the main advantages of this current measurement technique. For applications which necessitate the use of current sensors with a large number of windings (e.g. Rogowski coils), the bandwidth of these sensors decreases due to the higher internal inductance. This paper presents three approaches to improve the performance of inductive current sensors by using additional external components or mathematic corrections. Furthermore, a new self-calibrating inductive current measurement system is presented, which simplifies the use of these sensors and makes the current measurement process more comfortable.