1.

0 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 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.

1.1 Faraday Effect

Faraday found that when a piece of special glass is affected by a strong
magnetic field, it becomes active. And optic surface spin when a flat polarized optic
forwards through a glass in parallelism with magnetic lines. Since the Faraday's
discovery this phenomenon was seen in many solids, liquids and gases. The amount of
whirl in each material is proportional to the amount of magnetic field and the distance
that an optic go in a material impractically

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Physical interpretation of the Faraday effect
The linear polarized light that is seen to rotate in the Faraday effect can be
seen as consisting of the superposition of a right- and a left- circularly polarized beam,
this superposition principle is fundamental in many branches of physics. We can look at
the effects of each component right- or left polarized separately, and see what effect this
has on the result.
In circularly polarized light the direction of the electric field rotates at the
frequency of the light, either clockwise or counterclockwise. In a material, this electric
field causes a force on the charged particles comprising the material because of their low
mass, the electrons are most heavily affected. The motion thus effected will be circular,
and circularly moving charges will create their own magnetic field in addition to the
external magnetic field. There will thus be two different cases: the created field will be
parallel to the external field for one (circular) polarization, and in the opposing direction
for the other polarization direction thus the net B field is enhanced in one direction and
diminished in the opposite direction. This changes the dynamics of the interaction for
each beam and one of the beams will be slowed down more than the other, causing a
phase difference between the left- and right-polarized beam. When the two beams are
added after this phase shift, the result is again a linearly polarized beam, but with a
rotation in the polarization direction.
The direction of polarization rotation depends on the properties of the
material through which the light is shone. A full treatment would have to take into
account the effect of the external and radiation-induced fields on the wave function of the
electrons, and then calculate the effect of this change on the refractive index of the
material for each polarization, to see whether the right- or left circular polarization is
slowed down more.

Figure2.1: - Polarization due to Faraday effect

2.2 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.

Figure 2.2: - Rotation of a Plane polarized light by a nicole prism

4

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 eq2 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.

Figure 2.3: - Arrangement of Magneto-optic current transducer

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
polarizer, to convert the orientation variation of the polarized

oriented with the

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,

P1 =

P
2

0 (1 + Sin 2 )

P2 =

P
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 order to stimulate the behavior of the polarized light reflect through
the glass prism of an MOCT, ie 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 programme 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.

2.3 Design

Figure 2.4: - Structure of the MOCT

Figure2.4 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.
8

Figure2.5: - Two paths for Light to divert and return

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.

Figure 2.6: - Housing of the clamp-on MOCT

Figure 2.5 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 remanent flux, which could affect the accuracy of the current
measurement.

2.4 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 cheep 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
10

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.

2.5 Electronic Circuit for the MOCT

Figure 2.7: - Electronic diagram of the electronic

circuit for MOCT
Fig. 2.6 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
11

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 Vref 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 or 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 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 clamp-on MOCT are designed as 10V/KA
and 0.5V/KA and frequency responses are 4KHZ and 40 KHZ respectively.

2.6 Materials and Methods

2.61 Optical Current Transformer
Optical-CT was proposed by the creators of several methods by using
common theory: 1. Conventional CT with optical readout [1, 5]: In this type, one channel
of optical and completely insulated information connects to the output of CT so instead of
the typical copper wire is used the optic fiber in the output data transmission. The
methodology of converting the CT output to optical signal form is out of the discussion
of this article, but we can say that do not open the output heads of CT is the benefit of this
CT that it is the most important factor in the explosion of the CT.
A magnetic circuit arises around the conductor by ferrous core. The
difference with the traditional CT is it that an air gap is generated in the core and
magnetic field in the core measure in this air gap with optical instruments. The advantage
of this design is that the path of light is short and simple, and smaller optical elements are
required

12

Figure 2.8: - Schematic of Faraday current sensor using

magnetic concentrator

2.62 Optical path around the conductor

If the path is put around the conductor carrying of current that through it
the magnetic field effects on the light ray. This optical package path around the conductor
measures current similar to normal CT core. In our Division, this is the first plan that is
not including the Ferromagnetic component. This type includes two alternatives
A piece of light-sensitive
In this alternative of light path, actually, a piece of optical active materials
that one round surrounds around the conductor according to Figure.

13

Figure 2.9: - Schematic of faraday bulk sensor using

Fibre Optics
2.63 Fiber Optics
Here the light path around the conductor consists of an optical fiber that
it is wrapped to the number of rounds that it required to achieve the desired sensitivity.

Figure 2.10:- Fibre optics based current measurement

14

2.64 Witness Sensor

This converter is the latest type in our assortment and it is only type that
measurement of it does not include the surrounding of conductor completely. Instead, as
shown in Figure 6, the magnetic field at a point closer to the conductor affects on the
light distribution. And therefore, it is not a real current transformer. Although it can be
said a field constant distribution around the conductor is a function of its current. It can
be said that light with arbitrary polarization is composed of two independent components.
In the case of linearly polarized components can be simply said that two components are
perpendicular to each other

.
Figure 2.11:- Schematic of faraday effect sensor
unlinked type geometry

15

3.0 APPLICATION
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. Typically, 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.

The Magneto-Optic Current Transformer (MOCT) is a passive

optical current transducer which uses light to accurately measure current on high
voltage systems. The MOCT system is suitable for outdoor application and has an
accurate metering current range from less than 5 A to 3150 A using the same
sensor. Higher current rated designs are available upon request. Maximum rated
current is 3150 A. Metering accuracy exceeds class 0.2 per IEC 185 standards. The
system is provided with one electronic module that is located in the control house.
The MOCT system provides a 1.0 amp current output for metering. Contact the
factory for application assistance.
Three phases of MOCT sensors mounted on polymer insulator columns with
pre-terminated fiber optic cable in the insulator.
Electronic MOCT signal processing module 2100-I suitable for installation in the
substation control house.
Fiber optic cables for transmission of the light signals between the optical
sensors and the MOCT electronic module.

16

3.1 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.
6. The subject of creating noise is ruled out due to the use of optical
fiber.
7. Resistance to Acoustic and Electromagnetic parasites is excellent
that it plays an important role in protecting.
8. .The internal problems of MOITs and DOITs cause connecting
with lines and substations so it causes the traditional equipment to
explode very dangerous. In addition, it can damage surrounding
equipment. .
9. In terms of size and weight, they have small size and low weight.
The size of equipment can be a great help in substations that have
land problems and they cause the foundations and structures to
remove and they have high costs. The probable installation and
relocation does not require heavy machinery that it is huge
economy.
10. During installation, do not require cutting the insulated conductors.
It causes re-insulating to prevent.
11. Having sufficient electrical insulation resistance
12. Lack of magnetic saturated. Due to Lack of core, there is no
saturation that it solves many protection and Measurement
problems.

3.2 Disadvantages of MOCT

1. Temperature and stress induced linear birefringence in the sensing
material causes error and instability.
17

2. The accuracy of MOCT is so far insufficient for the use in power

systems.
3. If the magnetic field induced by the currents through the other
conductor is sufficiently high, the fault current measured will have
some errors. Since many conductors in the substation adopted air
insulation, it is possible for the Faraday sensor to detect the fields
resulting from the fault current by other conductors.
4. The effect of temperature on glass sensitive sensor causes duality of
the refractive index and it causes polarized light to distort and Light
with linear polarization has become into elliptical and it causes
unwanted disturbances to create, refractive index becomes various
amounts at different temperatures. Of course, with modern methods,
this problem has been solved. One of these methods is the use of
diamagnetic glass. It is independent of the effects of temperature and
it can be used without danger from 50 to 110 C
5. Faraday Effect is related to the wavelength of light in the system. To
remain constant wavelength of led, a temperature controller is used.
Thermal expansion and vibration effect on the magnetic field
adversely and this problem is solved by loop system.
6. Because output quantities of MOITs are negligible, despite the
simplicity of the building they need to have very high accuracy when
they design and build.

4.0 CONCLUSION
Rapid advances in the quality of performance and costs of the
optical fiber and electronic equipment to encourage development of
measuring trances based on new technology. 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 an conventional current transformers,
18

there is a chance of saturation of magnetic field under high current,

complicated insulation and cooling structure, a chance of electro-magnetic
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 OCP 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.

5.0 References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

J. World Electric Tech. 4(1), www.science-line.com.

www.nature.com/articles.html
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/magneto-opticeffect.html
www.ece.mtu.edu
A New Faraday Rotation Measurement Method for the Study on Magneto

Optical Property of PbO-Bi2O3-B2O3 Glasses for Current Sensor Applications,

www.SciRP.org.
6. www.jweet.science-line.com.
7. Magneto optics by S. K. Sujame and N kojima.
19

8. E. Munin, A. B. Villaverde, et al., Magneto-Optical Rotation of Heavy-Metal

Oxide Glasses, Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, Vol. 231, No. 1-2, 1998, pp.
134-142.

20