Accurate magnetic field sensor and method for wireless phasor measurement unit

1. A phasor measurement unit comprising:

a magnetic field transducer for transduction measurement of an electrical characteristic of a current carrying element in at least one of electrical power generation or distribution systems, said transducer generating a transducer output signal representative of said electrical characteristic, wherein

a) the current carrying element generates a magnetic field,

b) the magnetic field transducer is a coil having an air core producing substantially no magnetic nonlinearities when the coil is in the magnetic field, and

c) the transducer output signal is transduced from said magnetic field;

an amplifier receiving said transducer output signal and generating an amplifier output signal;

a filter receiving said amplifier output signal, low pass filtering said amplifier output signal, and generating a filter output signal;

an analog to digital converter receiving said filter output signal and generating a digital output signal; and

a processor receiving said digital output signal, calculating phasor data from said digital output signal and generating a data output signal, wherein said calculated phasor data is at least as accurate as phasor data from a phasor measurement unit or a frequency data recorder having a transducer for nontransduction measurement of the same electrical characteristic.

2. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 wherein said coil has about 400 turns, a coil length of about 1.5 cm. a coil inner diameter of about 5 mm, and a coil external diameter of about 1 cm.

3. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 wherein said analog to digital converter has an input magnitude limit, and said amplifier output signal has a maximum peak-to-peak voltage magnitude approximating said input magnitude limit.

4. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 wherein the current carried by said current carrying element varies over at least one order of magnitude, and said amplifier has a plurality of selectable gain ratios to maintain a substantially constant order of magnitude in said amplifier output signal as said current varies.

5. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 wherein said amplifier includes a plurality of successive stages.

6. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 wherein said filter substantially reduces deleterious anomalies appearing in said amplifier output signal.

7. The phasor measurement unit of claim 6 wherein said filter is a digital low pass filter of a third order Butterworth configuration having a second order cutoff frequency at about 70 Hertz.

8. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 wherein conductors carry said transducer output signal, and said transducer output signal conductors, said amplifier, said filter, said analog to digital converter, and said processor are shielded from magnetic field interference.

9. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 , further including a wireless data transmission device.

10. The phasor measurement unit of claim 1 , further comprising a GPS detector adapted to provide a GPS synchronization signal to said processor.

11. A method for phasor measurement comprising:

transducing an electrical characteristic from a magnetic field generated by a current carrying element in at least one of electrical power generation or distribution systems, comprising transducing said electrical characteristic from a coil having an air core producing substantially no magnetic nonlinearities when said coil is in said magnetic field;

generating a transducer output signal representative of said electrical characteristic;

amplifying said transducer output signal;

generating an amplifier output signal;

low pass filtering said amplifier output signal;

generating a filter output signal;

converting said filter output signal to a digital output signal:

calculating phasor data from said digital output signal: and

generating a data output signal based on said calculated phasor data, wherein said calculated phasor data is at least as accurate as phasor data from a phasor measurement unit or a frequency data recorder having a transducer for nontransduction measurement of the same electrical characteristic.

12. The method for phasor measurement of claim 11 wherein said transducing said electrical characteristic from a coil having an air core includes transducing said electrical characteristic from a coil having about 400 turns, a coil length of about 1.5 cm, a coil inner diameter of about 5 mm. and a coil external diameter of about 1 cm.

13. The method for phasor measurement of claim 11 wherein an analog to digital converter having an input magnitude limit performs said converting said filter output signal, and said amplifying said transducer output signal includes amplifying said transducer output signal to a maximum peak-to-peak voltage magnitude approximating said input magnitude limit.

14. The method for phasor measurement of claim 11 wherein the current carried by said current carrying element varies over at least one order of magnitude, and said amplifying said transducer output signal includes selecting a gain ratio from a plurality of gain ratios to maintain a substantially constant order of magnitude in said amplifier output signal as said current varies.

15. The method for phasor measurement of claim 11 wherein said filtering includes substantially reducing deleterious anomalies appearing in said amplifier output signal.

16. The method for phasor measurement of claim 15 wherein said filtering includes filtering using a digital low pass filter of a third order Butterworth configuration having a second order cutoff frequency at about 70 Hertz.

17. The method for phasor measurement of claim 11 wherein a transducer generates said transducer output signal, conductors carry said transducer output signal, an amplifier generates said amplifier output signal, a filter generates said filter output signal, an analog to digital converter generates said digital output signal, and a processor generates said data output signal, said method for phasor measurement further including shielding from magnetic field interference said transducer output signal conductors, said amplifier, said filter, said analog to digital converter, and said processor.

18. The method for phasor measurement of claim 11 wherein generating the data output signal includes receiving a GPS synchronization signal from a GPS detector and generating GPS-synchronized phasor data.