Magnetoresistive Shunt as an Alternative to Wheatstone Bridge Sensors in Electrical Current Sensing

Ramírez-Muñoz, Diego; García-Gil, Rafael; Soriano-Díaz, Sandra; Cardoso, Susana; Freitas, Paulo P.

doi:10.3390/electronics13152991

Open AccessArticle

Magnetoresistive Shunt as an Alternative to Wheatstone Bridge Sensors in Electrical Current Sensing

by

Diego Ramírez-Muñoz

^1,*

,

Rafael García-Gil

¹

,

Sandra Soriano-Díaz

¹,

Susana Cardoso

^2,3

and

Paulo P. Freitas

^2,3

¹

Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Valencia, Avda. de la Universitat, s/n, 46100 Burjassot, Spain

²

INESC Microsistemas e Nanotecnologias (INESC-MN), R. Alves Redol 9, 1000-029 Lisbon, Portugal

³

Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Electronics 2024, 13(15), 2991; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13152991

Submission received: 16 July 2024 / Revised: 25 July 2024 / Accepted: 26 July 2024 / Published: 29 July 2024

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Signal Processing, Sensor Fusion, and Data Fusion in Measurement Systems)

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Abstract

The main objective of the work is to investigate the capacity of a single magnetoresistance (MR) element to measure AC electrical currents. An instrumentation system is presented to characterize individually the four active elements of an MR bridge current sensor preserving their internal connections. The system suggests the possibility to sense electrical currents using only one element of the bridge opening the way to design new MR sensors based on this concept. Sensitivity, offset and non-linearity deviation were obtained using bridges of tunnel (TMR)- and giant (GMR)-based MR technologies. The single element embedded in a Wheatstone bridge configuration is used for practical current measurements in a 50 Hz line. An electronic circuitry is proposed to measure alternating (AC) currents with a single MR element, including a lock-in amplifier and an interface to properly convert the signal to its root mean square (rms) value with a resolution of 250 mA peak in the 125 A range.

Keywords: magnetoresistive shunt; current sensor; magnetoresistance; lock-in amplifier; electronic interface; bridge elements

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MDPI and ACS Style

Ramírez-Muñoz, D.; García-Gil, R.; Soriano-Díaz, S.; Cardoso, S.; Freitas, P.P. Magnetoresistive Shunt as an Alternative to Wheatstone Bridge Sensors in Electrical Current Sensing. Electronics 2024, 13, 2991. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13152991

AMA Style

Ramírez-Muñoz D, García-Gil R, Soriano-Díaz S, Cardoso S, Freitas PP. Magnetoresistive Shunt as an Alternative to Wheatstone Bridge Sensors in Electrical Current Sensing. Electronics. 2024; 13(15):2991. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13152991

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ramírez-Muñoz, Diego, Rafael García-Gil, Sandra Soriano-Díaz, Susana Cardoso, and Paulo P. Freitas. 2024. "Magnetoresistive Shunt as an Alternative to Wheatstone Bridge Sensors in Electrical Current Sensing" Electronics 13, no. 15: 2991. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13152991

APA Style

Ramírez-Muñoz, D., García-Gil, R., Soriano-Díaz, S., Cardoso, S., & Freitas, P. P. (2024). Magnetoresistive Shunt as an Alternative to Wheatstone Bridge Sensors in Electrical Current Sensing. Electronics, 13(15), 2991. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13152991

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

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Magnetoresistive Shunt as an Alternative to Wheatstone Bridge Sensors in Electrical Current Sensing

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