Rogowski and D-Dot Sensors for Nanosecond High-Voltage and High-Current Pulse Measurements in Impedance-Matched Pulse Generators

Abstract

To measure the output voltage and current in our impedance-matched solid-state Marx generator we developed a voltage and current sensor integrated with the IMG structure. One of the advantages of our IMG structure is the coaxial inner transmission line (TL). The end of this TL is the output connection, which consists of a grounded ring and a smaller high-voltage (HV) inner conductor (coaxial). This structure is ideal for fitting D-dot and Rogowski-coil sensors, as these sensors can benefit from the strictly defined electric and magnetic fields in this waveguide. We developed D-dot and Rogowski-coil sensors on printed circuit boards (PCB) and show their usability in our application for measuring HV pulses. The sensors have a bandwidth of about 200 MHz, measure voltages up to 20 kV, and currents up to hundreds of amperes. Their simple PCB design makes them easily reproducible and cheap compared to commercial sensors. Although designed for our IMG, they can be fit on any coaxial line. Next, we made passive integrators to partly integrate the differentiated sensor signal, which improves the signal quality when measured with an oscilloscope. Finally, after software signal postprocessing, we achieve far better voltage measurements and similar current measurements compared to commercial probes.