Micro Capacitive Electric-field Sensor Based on Electrostatic Force

Abstract

With the development of new power system, it is necessary to establish advanced sensor networks to monitor the physical quantities in the power grid. The measurement of electric field is widely used in applications such as power system monitoring, electrical equipment fault diagnosis, electromagnetic environment measurement, etc. In this paper, we proposed a micro electric field sensor used for high electric field measurement based on micromachining technology. This new type of sensor enables low-cost, high-performance measurement of electric fields and can be used in the measurement of voltage/electric field in new power system. In electric fields, the mechanical structure of the electric field sensor is deformed under the action of electrostatic force. This deformation is detected by means of capacitive measurements. According to the experimental results, the proposed electric field sensor has a wide measurement up to 1.2 MV/m and a high resolution of 395 V/m, which can meet the needs of most electric field measurement applications.