69

CURRENT MEASUREMENT DEVICE BASED ON THE FARADAY EFFECT

A CRUDEN J R MCDONALD I ANDONOVIC D UTTAMCHANDANI
UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE, UK
R PORRELLI K ALLAN
INSTRUMENT TRANSFORMERS LTD, UK

Abstract
An optical based current measurement device based
on the Faraday effect is described. The current
sensor is assessed with respect to British Standard
BS3938 Specification for Current Transformers and
classified accordingly. The performance of the sen-
sor is also discussed with respect to harmonic con-
tent and vibration and temperature effects.
Figure 1: Optical Crystal Based Current Measure-
ment Device
Introduction
Following recent advances in SF6 and vacuum
Theory of Operation
switchgear technologies and the increasing introduc-
The main components of the optical current mea-
tion and installation of microprocessor based re-
surement device are shown in Figure l.
lays, alternative methods are being sought to re-
place traditional iron-cored. current transformers. A Light Emitting Diode (LED) is used as the optical
Firstly, iron-cored C.T's now constitute an increas- source to transmit light through an optical crystal
ingly greater percentage of the overall switchgear and onward to a photodiode receiver, by means of
size and weight and may eventually come to limit connecting lengths of optical fibre cable.
breaker design. Secondly, the implementation of mi-
The transduction method employed by this device to
croprocessor based relays calls for the use of inter-
measure the current flowing in the conductor is the
posing C.T's to step-down the input signal levels to
Faraday Magnet-optic effect. When a linearly po-
those required by the internal electronics.
larised light beam passing through a magneto-optic
In response t o these shortcomings the authors have medium, in this instance the optical crystal, is trav-
developed an optical crystal based current measure- elling parallel to an applied external magnetic field,
ment device based on the principle of the Fara- the plane of polarisation will be rotated. This is
day Magneto-optic effect. This device offers sev- demonstrated in Figure 2.
eral advantages over iron-cored C.T's; significant re-
This effect is known as Faraday rotation, the amount
ductions in size and weight; increased measurement
of rotation being proportional to the magnetic field
bandwidth; A.C and D.C measurement; the output strength and therefore to the current producing it.
will not be lost through saturation effects under se-
The general formulaexpressing the Faraday rotation
vere fault conditions; the sensing head and connec-
in terms of the magnetic field is',';
tions are all of dielectric construction and therefore
electrically passive and e.m.i resistant; it will not
generate hazardous voltages; one device is suitable
for use on a range of voltage levels. The output sig-
8=V
f H.dl (1)

nal levels from this device will be compatible with where 8 is the magnitude of Faraday rotation in
the internal electronics of microprocessor based re- radians, H is the magnetic field strength (Am-
lays. peres/metre), 1 is the path length of the light ray

1 -1
 70

UNDER THO INFLUENCE OF THE APPLIED

MAGNETIC FIELD H, THE LIGHT BEAM
IS ROTATBD BY 8 DEGREES IN THE X-Y
PLANB.

Yy.
_._.
-- .._
_____.----
-.._
._.eF
--.._
-

x
___._.._.
_2__--.-*
-.---.
z
LIGET PROPAGATION IN
2 DIRBCTION

Figure 2: Faraday b t a t i o n

"Ims 01 m a n r-~recl~lr

Figure 4: Bias of Polarisers at 5 radians

is the light intensity through the system (Watts) and

Figure 3: Principle of operation of Polariser
in the magnetic field (metres) and V is the Verdet
constant which expresses the magneto-optic prop-
erty of the material (radians/Ampere-turn ).
With respect to the device shown in Figure 1, equa-
tion (1) may be simplified by assuming a uniform
magnetic field strength over the entire crystal length
1, and applying Ampere's Law. This gives;
e = VI- 1
27rr
where I is the current flow in the conductor (Am-
peres) and r is the separation between the conductor
and crystal (metres).
The Faraday rotation is converted to a light inten-
sity signal by means of an analysing linear polariser,
and this intensity modulated signal is subsequently
detected using a photodiode receiver. A linear po-
lariser functions by allowing transmission of the op-
tical field in only one plane of polarisation as shown
in Figure 3.
6 is the Faraday rotation signal.
Equation (3) represents a complex relationship be-
tween Do and 8 , but as is shown in Figure 4 a linear
relationship does exist over a small range of B pro-
vided that a bias polarisation of $ radians is intro-
duced.
This bias is introduced through the use of two lin-
ear polarisers, one at either end-face of the crystal.
Light entering the crystal will be polarised in, for
instance, a vertical direction, whereas the opposite
polariser will have its transmission axis orientated at
4 radians to the vertical giving the impression of 5
radians of Faraday rotation. An applied A.C mag-
netic field will then cause actual Faraday rotation to
be induced with the direction of rotation changing
with respect to the changes of direction of current
flow.
The actual detector output signal obtained is there-
fore modified from equation (3) and is given by;
Do= K I , c o s 24( ~+ 6') (4)
It should be noted that equation (4) represents an
ideal optical system and is applicable only in the
absence of birefringence. The problems encountered
with the introduction of birefringence are dealt with
later.

However the photodiode used in the detector cir-

cuit, is a square law device in that it produces an
output proportional to the square of the input o p
tical field incident upon it. If the input and output
polarisers have their transmission axes parallel t o
each other the output of the optical measurement
device is given by;
Do= KI,cosZ6' (3)
where Do is the detector electronics output (Volts),
K is a constant of proportionality (Volts/Watt), I,
Performance evaluation of Current
Sensor
The crystal under evaluation for use in the cur-
rent measurement device is Terbium Gallium Gar-
net (TGG). This is a paramagnetic material with
a quoted Verdet constant3 of 82 pradians/Ampere-
turn at a wavelength of 880nm. The authors are
using an LED light source at 850nm at which
point the Verdet constant is approximately 86

-
T
1
 71
1 /
Figure 5: Figure 5:Current versus output response
of TGG sensor
pradians/Ampere-turn. The crystal is 15" in
length and 2mm in diameter, and is located in a
robust polymer housing 5cm in length and approx-
imately 4cm2 cross-section, which also incorporates
the two polarisers and two graded index lenses.
The sensor, as shown in Figure 1, behaves as a point
sensor measuring the magnetic field only at one posi-
tion around the conductor and is therefore suscepti-
ble to fields from neighbouring conductors. The au-
thors have chosen to develop a point sensor because
further reductions in device size are possible com-
pared to wound optical fibre devices, or integrating
sensors in general. Furthermore point sensors can be
easily retrofitted whereas installation of integrating
sensors require the conductor to be dismantled.
Testing of the TGG sensor has concentrated on es-
tablishing a known relationship between the test
current and the sensor output signal. Figure 5 gives
the response graph achieved following a 'current-
run' test at room temperature.
The following points are worth noting:
1. The errors at low values of current, < 400
Amps, are primarily due to a low signal to noise
ratio at small values of Faraday rotation, and
vibration effects on the optical fibre leads caus-
ing light intensity fluctuations.
2. The errors at high values of current, > 3200
Amps, are due to poor housing manufacture.
The crystal was not firmly potted in the housing
with the consequence that high values of cur-
rent, and therefore magnetostriction induced
vibration at the sensor head, caused misalign-
ment of the optical system and therefore light
intensity changes. In addition the housing had
not been securely fastened to the conductor and
due to the conductor vibration small changes
in conductor/crystal seperation distance were
leading to errors in the Faraday rotation signal.
Work is in progress to counter these problems.
Bearing in mind the points noted above, the errors
at high values of current are expected to be reduced
to < 1%. At present therefore the sensor will con-
form t o the current error classification of Class 5P10
BS39384 protection current transformers for rated
currents above 1000 Amperes.
Dynamic range of Optical Sensor
With reference to Figure 4, the linear region is de-
fined as the range of values of 8 for which the cos2@
function does not differ by greater than 0.1% from
a straight line representation of the function calcu-
lated using the gradient at the 45' bias point. The
linear region, by this definition, extends for f4.9'
from the centre point of 45'.
Having previously discussed the error causes at high
current values it is expected that < 1%error can be
maintained to the limits of the linear region. For the
optical system described here this would correspond
to a current value of approximately 15,000 Amperes.
Above this value errors due to the non-linearities
of the cos2@function would become evident. Suit-
able electronic processing could be employed that
will cater for the c0sz8 response and improve the
dynamic range of the device.
Measurement of currents greater than 15,000 Amps
is still possible at present by reconfiguration of the
optical system. Positioning of the sensor head fur-
ther from the conductor will reduce the magnetic
field strength imposed on the sensor and therefore
increase the current necessary to reach the limits of
the linear region. Other methods of increasing the
dynamic range include using a shorter crystal and
indeed substituting the TGG crystal for a material
of lower Verdet constant.
Frequency response of Optical Sensor
The action of Faraday rotation is effectively iustan-
taneous for practical purposes and therefore any
phase difference encountered maybe attributed to
the processing electronics. The authors feel the
phase difference requirements of the C.T classes can
 72

be achieved by appropriate design of the photode-
tector electronics.
Very high frequency current measurement up to
1GHz has been reported using optical crystal
devices' and it is expected that optical devices will
offer significant improvements on conventional C.T
bandwidth.
Harmonic analysis of Optical Sensor
consideration given to meeting the requirements
of BS3938 C.T classification for current error and
phase difference.
A modular crystal based device has been con-
structed which offers significant reductions in size
and weight compared to iron-cored C.T's, an in-
crease in signal bandwidth, is robust and easy to
install, and has a sensing system constructed solely
from dielectric materials and is therefore immune to
EMI.

With reference to Figure 4, there is the possibility

of harmonics being generated in the detector out- References
put due to the non-linearities of the cos26' response.
A spectrum analysis of the sensor output was com- 1). Rogers,A.J,'Optical measurement of current and
pared to the output from a Class 0.1% C.T over the voltage on power systems',
available test current range of up to 5,000 Amps. Elec Power Applic V01.2 No.4, Aug 1979, pg 120.
There was no evidence of harmonics being intro-
2). Annovazi-Lodi,V,Donati,S,'FiberCurrent sen-
duced by the sensor over this current range.
sors for HV-lines',
SPIE Vo1.798 Fiber Optic SensorsII,1987,pg270.
Vibration effects on Sensor Performance 3). Manzi.D,'Terbium Gallium Garnet-Puttinn A
New Spin On' Things', Lasers E Optronics, Febru-
Vibration effects on the optical cables cause light ary 1989.
losses in the system by introducing microbends
which couple light out from the fibre core. Vibration 4). 'Specification for Current Transformers', BS
also causes birefringence in optical cables and the 3938:February 1973, British Standards Institute,
magneto-optic crystal. Birefringence in the crystal London.
will generally cause the linearly polarised light ray 5). Deeter,M.N,et al,'Fast, Sensitive Magnetic-
to degenerate into an ellipitical polarisation state Field Sensors Based on the Faraday Effect in
which will constantly change in relation to the vibra- YIG',J. Lightwave Tech. Vo1.8 No.12,
tion signal. Both microbending and birefringence 1990, pg1838.
cause light intensity fluctuations in a Faraday rota-
tion system introducing errors to the desired current
measurement.
A dual wavelength scheme for compensation of these
effects has been developed by the authors. Tests are
ongoing and are based on the measurement of the
sensor response t o a controllable source of vibration.
Initial tests on the system has shown considerable
improvement over previous measurements.

Temperature effects on Sensor Performance

The Verdet constant of TGG is both wavelength and

temperature dependent. Initial temperature testing
over a range of 50' Celsius has indicated a change
in Verdet constant of approximately 5%. Full tem-
perature testing of the sensor from -20° C to +80°
C is being carried out to characterise the change in
Verdet constant, and the results will be used to test
a proposed temperature compensation scheme.

Conclusions

An optical crystal based current measurement de-

vice has been successfully demonstrated and due