Design of a 2 kA Pulsed Current Source for Characterization of Current Sensors

This paper presents the design of a 2 kA pulsed current source. It uses parallel connected silicon carbid semiconductor devices to provide high current amplitudes and short rise and fall times. Also a custom gate driver, based on a galium nitride half-bridge, is used to allow short turn on and off times of the parallel connected semiconductor devices. In this way, current pulses with amplitudes up to 2 kA and rise and fall times of less than 60 ns can be generated by the current source, which are typical of today’s commutation current in power electronic systems.Therefore, it can be used for the characterization and comparison of highly dynamic current sensors.