Design and Realization of a Novel Compact Fluxgate Current Sensor

A new closed-loop magnetic current sensor is presented in this paper. The sensor consists of two toroidal magnetic cores. One core works in fluxgate principle for the measurement of dc and low-frequency ac, and the other one is used as a current transformer for higher frequency application. Based on the simulation results, a prototype was designed, and the test results have a good agreement with the simulation results. The closed-loop configuration with a magnetic core and a feedback winding in the sensor improved the sensitivity of the sensor, eliminated the offset and drift related to temperature, and greatly reduced the error caused by magnetic hysteresis phenomenon. It can measure currents up to 20 A, with an accuracy of 0.5%, and a 50 kHz small signal bandwidth.