NATIO

NAL
INSTIT
UTE
OF
TECHN
OLOG
Y
SRINA
GAR

NAME: BURHANUL MAJEED

ROLL NO. : 32
ENROLL: 223/12
TOPIC: OPTICAL CURRENT
TRANSFORMER

ABSTRACT
An accurate current transducer is a key component of any power system
instrumentation. To measure currents, power stations and substations conventionally employ
inductive type current transformers. With short circuit capabilities of power system getting
larger and the voltage level going higher the conventional current transducers becomes more
bulky and costly.
It appears that newly emerged MOCT technology provides a solution for many of the
problems by the conventional current transformers. MOCT measures the rotation angle of the
plane polarized lights caused by the magnetic field and convert it into a signal of few volts
proportional to the magnetic field.
Main advantage of an MOCT is that there is no need to break the conductor to enclose the
optical path in the current carrying circuit and there is no electromagnetic interference.

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION

2. DIFFERENT POLARIZATION TYPES ..

3. FARADAY EFFECT ..

4. MOCT-PRINCIPLE.

5. DESIGN.

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6. MAGNETO-OPTICAL SENSOR...........................................

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7. ELECRONIC CIRCUIT FOR THE MOCT.

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8. APPLICATION.

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9. ADVANTAGES OF MOCT.

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10. DISADVANTAGES OF MOCT

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11. CONCLUSION

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12. REFERENCES...

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INTRODUCTION
An accurate electric current transducer is a key component of any power system
instrumentation. To measure currents, power stations and substations conventionally employ
inductive type current transformers with core and windings. For high voltage applications,
porcelain insulators and oil-impregnated materials have to be used to produce insulation
between the primary bus and the secondary windings. The insulation structure has to be
designed carefully to avoid electric field stresses, which could eventually cause insulation
breakdown. The electric current path of the primary bus has to be designed properly to
minimize the mechanical forces on the primary conductors for through faults. The reliability
of conventional high-voltage current transformers have been questioned because of their
violent destructive failures which caused fires and impact damage to adjacent apparatus in the
switchyards, electric damage to relays, and power service disruptions.
With short circuit capabilities of power systems getting larger, and the voltage levels
going higher the conventional current transformers becomes more and more bulky and costly
also the saturation of the iron core under fault current and the low frequency response make it
difficult to obtain accurate current signals under power system transient conditions. In
addition to the concerns, with the computer control techniques and digital protection devices
being
introduced
into power systems, the conventional current transformers have caused further difficulties, as
they are likely to introduce electro-magnetic interference through the ground loop into the
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digital systems. This has required the use of an auxiliary current transformer or optical
isolator to avoid such problems.
It appears that the newly emerged Magneto-optical current transformer technology
provides a solution for many of the above mentioned problems. The MOCT measures the
electric current by means of Faraday Effect, which was first observed by Michael Faraday
150 years ago. The Faraday Effect is the phenomenon that the orientation of polarized light
rotates under the influence of the magnetic fields and the rotation angle is proportional to the
strength of the magnetic field component in the direction of optical path.
The MOCT measures the rotation angle caused by the magnetic field and converts it
into a signal of few volts proportional to the electric currant. It consist of a sensor head
located near the current carrying conductor, an electronic signal processing unit and fiber
optical cables linking to these two parts. The sensor head consist of only optical component
such as fiber optical cables, lenses, polarizers, glass prisms, mirrors etc. the signal is brought
down by fiber optical cables to the signal processing unit and there is no need to use the
metallic wires to transfer the signal. Therefore the insulation structure of an MOCT is simpler
than that of a conventional current transformer, and there is no risk of fire or explosion by the
MOCT. In addition to the insulation benefits, a MOCT is able to provide high immunity to
electromagnetic interferences, wider frequency response, large dynamic range and low
outputs which are compatible with the inputs of analog to digital converters. They are ideal
for the interference between power systems and computer systems. And there is a growing
interest in using MOCTs to measure the electric currents.

Faraday Effect
In physics, the Faraday Effect or Faraday rotation is a magneto-optical phenomenonthat
is, an interaction between light and a magnetic field in a medium. The Faraday effect causes a
rotation of the plane of polarization which is linearly proportional to the component of the
magnetic field in the direction of propagation. Formally, it is a special case of gyro
electromagnetism obtained when the dielectric permittivity tensor is diagonal.[1]
Discovered by Michael Faraday in 1845, the Faraday effect was the first experimental
evidence that light and electromagnetism are related. The theoretical basis of
electromagnetic (which includes visible light) was completed by James Clerk Maxwell in the
1860s and 1870s. This effect occurs in most optically transparent dielectric materials
(including liquids) under the influence of magnetic fields.
The Faraday effect is caused by left and right circularly polarized waves propagating at
slightly different speeds, a property known as circular birefringence. Since a linear
polarization can be decomposed into the superposition of two equal-amplitude circularly
polarized components of opposite handedness and different phase, the effect of a
relative phase shift, induced by the Faraday effect, is to rotate the orientation of a wave's
linear polarization.
The Faraday effect has a few applications in measuring instruments. For instance, the Faraday
effect has been used to measure optical rotatory power and for remote sensing of magnetic
fields. The Faraday effect is used in spintronics research to study the polarization of electron
spins in semiconductors. Faraday rotators can be used for amplitude modulation of light, and
are the basis of optical isolators and optical circulators; such components are required in
optical telecommunications and other laser applications.

MOCT-PRINCIPLE
The Magneto-Optical current transformer is based on the Faradays effect. Michael
Faraday discovered that the orientation of linearly polarized light was rotated under the
influence of the magnetic field when the light propagated in a piece of glass, and the rotation
angle was proportional to the intensity of the magnetic field. The concept of Faraday Effect
could be understood from the Fig.1.

Fig-1 Concept of Faraday Effect

Generally, this phenomenon can be described as follows:

=V

dl

Eq(1)

is the Faraday rotation angle,

V is the Verdet constant of magneto-optical material
B is the magnetic flux density along the optical path
l is the optical path
When the linearly polarized light encircles a current carrying conductor eq(1) can be
rewritten as according to Amperes law as
= nVI
.Eq(2)
I is the current to be measured,
is the permeability of the material,
n is the number of turns of the optical path.
The Faraday Effect outlined in eq (2) is a better format to apply to an MOCT, because the
rotation angle in this case is directly related to the enclosed electric current. It rejects the
magnetic field signals due to external currents which are normally quite strong in
power system.

Magneto Optical Current Transducer

Fig-2

The typical application of the Faraday Effect to an MOCT is clear from fig (2). A polarizer is
used to convert the randomly polarized incident light into linearly polarized light. The
orientation of the linearly polarized light rotates an angle after the light has passed through
the magneto-optical material because of Faraday Effect. Then another polarization prism is
used as an analyzer, which is 45 0 oriented with the polarizer, to convert the orientation
variation of the polarized light into intensity variation of the light with two outputs, and then
these two outputs are send to photo detectors. The purpose of using the analyzer is that photo
detectors can only detect the intensity of light, rather than the orientation of polarizations.
The output optical signals from the analyzer can be described as,

P
P1 =

P
P2 =

(1 + Sin 2 )
0

(1 - Sin 2 )

P0 is the optical power from the light source,

is the Faraday rotation angle,
P1 and P2 are the optical power delivered by the detectors.
In order to properly apply Eq (2) in the MOCT design by making the optical path
wrap around the current carrying conductor, the optical path has to be folded by reflections.
Total internal reflections and metal reflections are good ways to achieve this. However
reflections introduce phase shift; hence change the polarization state of the light. The optical
prism has to be designed to keep the light going through the MOCT linearly polarized. In
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order to stimulate the behavior of the polarized light reflect through the glass prism of
an MOCT, i.e, to maintain the light traveling through the glass prism to be linearly polarized
and also for the analysis of the effects of dielectric and metal reflections on the linearly
polarized light, a computer program is written in FORTARN language. Stimulation results
include information such as polarization state change at each reflection and the overall
responsibility of the optical sensor.

DESIGN
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Fig-3

The Structure of the Clamp-on Optical Sensor

Fig (3) shows the structure of this MOCT. The optical sensor consists of two separate
clamp-on parts. In each part of the device, linearly polarized light is arranged to pass through
the
optical
glass
prism
to
pickup
the
Faraday
rotation
signal. The polarization compensation technique is applied at each corner of the prisms, so
that the light passing through the prism remains linearly polarized. At the other end of the
prism, a silver mirror reflects the light beam so that light beam comes back to its sending end
via the same route while accumulating the Faraday rotations.

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Fig-4

Power line and Optical Path of the Optical Sensor

The two halves can be assembled around the conductor. Thereby, the rotation angles
from the two halves of the sensor [Fig.4(a)] are added up in the signal processing unit so that
the total rotation angle (1+2 ) is the same as the rotation angle from the optical path
shown in Fig4(b), which is two turns around the conductor.

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Structure of the Housing of the Clamp-on MOCT

Fig-5
Fig5 shows the structure of the housing for the clamp-on MOCT. The optical glass
prism polarizes, and lenses are completely sealed in the housing by epoxy, so that they are
free of environmental hazards such as dust and moisture. This structure avoids the use of
magnetic material to concentrate the magnetic field as found in some other MOCT design and
Hall Effect current measurement devices. There for it is free from the effect of remnant flux,
which could affect the accuracy of the current measurement.

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MAGNETO-OPTICAL SENSOR
Almost all transparent material exhibits the magneto-optical effect or Faraday Effect,
but the effect of some of the material is very temperature dependent, and they are not suitable
for the sensing material. The optical glasses are good candidate for the sensing material,
because the Verdet constants are not sensitive to the temperature changes, and they have good
transparency properties. They are cheap and it is easy to get large pieces of them. Among the
optical glasses SF-57 is the best choice, as it has larger Verdet constant than most of the other
optical glasses. And MOCT made out of these materials can achieve higher sensitivity. In the
MOCT, from Eq (2), the total internal rotation angle is,
1+ 2 2VI
Where I is the current to be measured,
= 4 x 10-7 H/m
V=7.7 x 102 degrees/Tm at a wavelength of 820nm
Therefore = 1.9 degrees/ KA.
Different optical fibers are designed for different usage. The single mode fiber has
very wide bandwidth, which is essential for communication systems, but it is difficult to
launch optical power into the single mode fiber because of its
very thin size. While large multimode fiber is convenient for collecting maximum amount of
light from the light source, it suffers from the problem of dispersion which limits its
bandwidth. In the situation of power system instrumentation, only moderate frequency
response is required and in MOCT, the more optical power received by the detectors the
better signal to noise ratio can be achieved. Therefore, the large core multi-mode optical fiber
is used here to transfer the optical signals to and from the optical sensors.

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ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT FOR THE MOCT

Electronic Circuit for the MOCT

Fig-6
Fig6 shows the schematic diagram of the electronic circuit for the clamp-on MOCT.
In order to make use of the dynamic range of the digital system as well as the different
frequency response requirements of metering and relaying, metering signal (small signal) and
relaying signal (large signal) are treated differently. Two output stages have been designed
accordingly. One stage, which has 1 KA dynamic range, is for power system current
metering, and other stage, which operate up to 20 KA, provides power system current signals
for digital relay systems.
In each part of the device, the sum of the two receiving channels signals, which have
the same DC bias I0, differenced at junction with a reference voltage Vref from the power
level adjustment potentiometer. Then an integrator is used to adjust the LED driver current to
maintain 2I0 to be the same as the Vref at the junction. Because the reference voltage V ref is
the same for both the sides, the DC bias I0 and the sensitivities 2I0 of the two halves of the
clamp-on MOCT are considered to be stable and identical.
The difference of the two receiving channels signals 2I0 (2Sin1) and 2I0 (2Sin2) in
each part of the device are added directly and then fed through an amplifier for the small
signals. At the same time these two signals are processed digitally to do a sin -1 calculation on

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each and then summed together for the large signal situation when the non-linearity of the
MOCT can no longer be ignored. The ratio responses of the two output stages of the clampon MOCT are designed as 10V/KA and 0.5V/KA and frequency responses are 4KH Z and 40
KHZ respectively.

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APPLICATIONS
The MOCT is designed to operate in a transparent manner with modern electronic
meters and digital relays, which have been adopted for a low energy analog signal
interface.
The design approach is to redefine the interface point as to input the analog to digital
conversion function used by each of these measurement systems.

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ADVANTAGES OF MOCT
1. No risk of fires and explosions.
2. No need to use metallic wires to transfer the signal and so simpler insulation structure than
conventional current transformer.
3. High immunity to electromagnetic interference.
4. Wide frequency response and larger dynamic range.
5. Low voltage outputs which are compatible with the inputs of digital to analog converters.

DISADVANTAGES OF MOCT
1. Temperature and stress induced linear birefringence in the sensing material causes error
and instability.
2. The accuracy of MOCT is so far insufficient for the use in power systems.

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CONCLUSION
This paper presents a new kind of current transducer known as magneto optical
current transducer. This magneto optical current transducer eliminates many of the drawbacks
of the conventional current transformers. In a conventional current transformers, there is a
chance of saturation of magnetic field under high current, complicated insulation and cooling
structure, a chance of electromagnetic interference etc.
By applying Faradays principle this transducer provides an easier and more accurate
way of current measurement. This MOCT is widely used in power systems and substations
nowadays. And a new trend is being introduced, which known as OCT based on adaptive
theory, which make use of accuracy in the steady state of the conventional current
transformer and the MOCT with no saturation under fault current transients.

REFERENCES
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1.Farnoosh Rahmatian ;patric p. chavez &Nicholas A.F

Optical voltage transducers using multiple electric field sensors .
2. IEEE transactions on power delivery ,vol.17 april 2002
J C Santos, M.C Taplama Ciogle and K Hidak
Pockels High Voltage Measurement Systems
3. IEEE transactions on power delivery ,vol.15 jan 2000
4. http://www.iop.org/EJ/article
5. http://www.cris-inst.com/publication/bejing
6. Advanced Engineering Physics by Premlet
Published by- Phasor Books, Kerala.
7. Physics for engineers by M.R. Srinivasan
Published by- New Age International Publication, New Delhi.

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