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Magnetic Sensor Array-Based AC current

Measurement for Multiconductor Cables
Using Evolutionary Computation Method
Lichan Meng, Pengfei Gao, Student Member, IEEE, Moosa Moghimi Haji, Student Member, IEEE,
and Wilsun Xu, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract A novel and accurate AC current measurement

method for multiconductor cables is proposed in this paper by
employing magnetic sensor arrays and evolutionary algorithms.
The positions of several conductors within the electrical cables
are determined by the computing method. Then the currents
in these conductors can be measured in real time by using a
matrix multiplication computation. The mathematical model
for estimating conductor currents is investigated considering
two configurations, i.e., single conductor and multiconductors in
the cable. Evolutionary computation methods are investigated
and implemented to improve the computing accuracy.
In particular, the performances of a variety of evolutionary
algorithms in the current computation are compared. The
differential evolution (DE) computation method is found
outperforming other methods after conducting numerous
simulation studies. Finally, comprehensive experiments are
carried out by utilizing the DE method to validate the
theoretical studies. The experimental results sufficiently verify
the feasibility and reliability of the proposed AC current
measurement method for multiconductor cables.
Index
Terms Current
measurement,
evolutionary
computation, magnetic sensor arrays, mathematical model,
multiconductor cables.

I. I NTRODUCTION

CQUIRING online current values is crucial for a wide

range of electrical as well as industrial applications.
However, current measurement is not as straightforward as
that for the voltage since the voltage can be gauged by
direct contact methods. By contrast, indirect means are widely
utilized for current measurement in which voltage or magnetic
field related to the current is sensed [1]. Many researchers have
conducted extensive studies of current sensing technologies.
The common solution for current sensing is on the basis
of Ohms law, such as the shunt resistor [2], [3]. Despite

Manuscript received August 25, 2014; revised January 24, 2015; accepted
February 4, 2015. The Associate Editor coordinating the review process was
Dr. Edoardo Fiorucci.
L. Meng, P. Gao, and M. M. Haji are with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3,
Canada (e-mail: amandalcmeng@gmail.com).
W. Xu is with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
of Canada/Industrial Research Chair in Quantum Cryptography and
Communication, Industrial Research Chair Professor, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB T6G 2R3, Canada.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIM.2015.2419032

its simplicity, the obvious downside is the excessive power

losses during operations. Other current sensing techniques
resort to contactless ways, which utilize electromagnetic field
principles, such as Faradays law of induction [4], [5], the
Hall effect [6][8], and the Faraday effect [9].
Apart from the current sensing technique, there are abundant
research studies in advancing the methods of current measurement. Circular arrays of magnetic sensors were employed in
order to improve the accuracy of single current measurement
and to reduce the crosstalk effects of other magnetic fields
in [10]. Chen and Chen [11] developed an apparatus
for measurement of conductor current using four sensors
symmetrically attached to the cable. By averaging the sum of
the four outputs, the ambient magnetic field inferences were
eliminated. In [12], three magnetic sensors were mounted
surrounding the current-carrying cable. The relative position
of the conductor was calculated based on BiotSavarts law.
Then the current was obtained with the known geometry
parameters of the conductor. In addition, there are also
current measurement devices invented by implementing
various methods [13], [14] in a contactless way. Nevertheless,
all the above-mentioned efforts are dealing with singleconductor current only.
It becomes more complicated for the current measurement
of multiconductor cables since more objects are involved. It is
relatively simple to analytically calculate single-conductor current by implementing sensor arrays [12]. Similarly, magnetic
sensor arrays can be utilized for multiple current measurement.
However, one of the most daunting challenges is how to
correctly differentiate the conductors positions as well as the
current of each conductor inside the cable in the measurement.
Olson and Lorenz [15] studied the methodology of decoupling
cross-coupled fields in current sensor arrays. This method
requires knowledge of the exact geometry parameters of the
conductors, which presents a new question as the conductors
inside the cable are normally invisible in practice. Another
solution for measurement of currents flowing in parallel
conductors was proposed in [16]. However, the geometry
information of the conductors was needed to be gained using
finite element method simulation or a particular calibration
method. In [17], the geometry parameters were collected
from a cable geometry database prepared from lab testing
in advance. This on the downside would restrict practical

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Fig. 1.

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Magnetic field generated by three conductors in an electrical cable.

applications since the real geometry information is unknown

in the field. Bourkeb et al. [18] utilized a computation method
to determine the positions of the conductors by solving an
inverse problem. It does not focus on the reconstruction of the
cable positions. The performance for the reconstruction of the
cable positions and the accuracy of the current measurement
are not thoroughly examined due to the lack of technical
details of this method in [18]. Hence, the feasibility and the
reliability of this computation method for the conductors
geometry parameters are unknown.
To overcome the drawbacks of the previous studies, a novel
method based on magnetic sensor arrays for the measurement
of AC currents in multiconductor cables is proposed in this
paper. Sophisticated numerical computations are employed and
thoroughly investigated to calculate each current in the cable
without knowing the geometry parameters of the conductors
beforehand. On the basis of the mathematical modeling of
the problem, a series of evolutionary algorithms is specifically
studied and implemented using MATLAB for exploring the
conductors positions. Subsequently, the simulation results
are compared to evaluate the performance of each computation method. Furthermore, comprehensive experiments are
conducted for verifying the proposed current measurement
method.

Fig. 2.

Modeling of a single-conductor single-sensor system.

magnetic field interference of other current conductors and

magnetized bodies.
A. Modeling of Single-Conductor and Single-Sensor System
Fig. 2 shows the model of a single conductor and single
sensor in a Cartesian coordinate system. The magnetic
sensors are located in a plane perpendicular to the axis of the
conductors and measure the magnetic flux density along
the x and y axes only. Sensor S1 is located at ( p1, q1 ) with
the orientations indicated in Fig. 2. 1 is defined as the angle
between the direction of the sensor and the tangent line at
point S1 , while a is the angle between the direction of the
sensor and the magnetic field direction. The geometry
parameters for sensor p1 , q1 , and 1 are known in advance.
The magnetic field detected by the magnetic sensor can be
expressed as
Bs = Ba cos a

(2)

where
II. F ORMULATION OF C URRENT
M EASUREMENT P ROBLEM
Typically, there are three conductors in the electrical cables
in residential buildings, as shown in Fig. 1. On the basis of
BiotSavarts law, the magnetic field produced by a straight
cable at any point in free space can be approximated as (1)
considering that the cable length is much larger than the
distance h [11], [12]
0
I
(1)
B=
2h
where B is the magnetic flux density, 0 is the permeability
of free space, I is the current magnitude, and h is the distance
between the sensing point and the center of the conductor. The
magnetic flux density B at any point produced by multiple
conductors can be obtained by applying the principle of
superposition as shown in Fig. 1. In this paper, it is
assumed that the positions and orientations of the sensors are
known in the manufacturing process. Meanwhile, the magnetic
sensor arrays are supposed to be well shielded from the

cos a = cos(1 ) = cos 1 cos + sin 1 sin

0
Ba =
Ia

2 (x a p1 )2 + (ya q1 )2

(3)
(4)

where a , 1 , , p1 , q1 , x a , and ya are shown in Fig. 2 and

Ia is the current in the conductor.
According to the law of cosine
2 + h2 r 2
ro1
oa
2ro1 h
p12 + q12 p1 x a q1 ya
= 
.

p12 + q12 (x a p1 )2 + (ya q1 )2

cos =

(5)

Since q1 x a p1 ya > 0, the distance r can be written as

follows according to the formula of the distance from a point
to a line:
d=

q 1 x a p 1 ya
|q1 x a p1 ya |

= 
.
p12 + q12
p12 + q12

(6)

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MENG et al.: MAGNETIC SENSOR ARRAY-BASED AC CURRENT MEASUREMENT FOR MULTICONDUCTOR CABLES



(q1 sin 1 p1 cos 1 )x a (q1 cos 1 + p1 sin 1 )ya + p12 + q12 cos 1

cos a =

p12 + q12 (x a p1 )2 + (ya q1 )2
Bs = k 

Ia
p12

+ q12

(q1 sin 1 p1 cos 1 )(x a p1 ) (q1 cos 1 + p1 sin 1 )(ya q1 )

(x a p1 )2 + (ya q1 )2

Hence

(8)

(10)

where

sin =

q 1 x a p 1 ya
d
.
= 

h
p12 + q12 (x a p1 )2 + (ya q1 )2

(7)

By substituting (5) and (7) into (3), we obtain (8), as shown

at the top of this page. Then substitute (4) and (8)
into (2)
Bs =

Ia
0

cos a .
2
(x a p1 )2 + (ya q1 )2

(9)

Let (0 /2) = k, (9) can be further rewritten as (10),

as shown at the top of this page.
In order to determine the position and the current for
the single conductor, three equations would be necessary
to solve the three unknown parameters x a , ya , Ia in (10).
Such information could be obtained by using three magnetic
sensors to produce three independent equations. It should be
noticed that due to the inherent characteristic of a quadratic
equation, multiple solutions may exist for (10). Accordingly,
adding more extra sensors is typically sufficient to overcome
this problem.

B. Modeling of a Three-Conductor System

On the basis of modeling for a single-conductor system, it is
understood that there are nine variables in the equation group
for a three-conductor system. Considering one redundant
sensor for filtering out other unreasonable solutions without
creating too much data burden, 10 magnetic sensors deployed
in an array are utilized to find the unknowns. The object
problem is therefore composed of 10 nonlinear equations with
nine variables (unknown vector X). The first three unknowns
x 1 , x 2 , and x 3 are AC currents and the other six unknowns
represent the corresponding positions. For example, (x 4 , x 5 )
denotes the position of one conductor with AC current x 1 .
Meanwhile, x 1 , x 2 , and x 3 are represented by complex
numbers for indicating both the amplitude and the phase
angle of the AC current. As mentioned above, the principle
of superposition can be applied for the magnetic flux density
generated by multiple conductors. The nonlinear equations
for three conductors are given in

F1 (X) = 0

F (X) = 0
2
X = [x 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 ]
(11)

F10 (X) = 0,

Fi (X) = x 1 [m i (x 4 pi ) + n i (x 5 qi )]
[(x 6 pi )2 + (x 7 qi )2 ][(x 8 pi )2 + (x 9 qi )2 ]
+ x 2 [m i (x 6 pi ) + n i (x 7 qi )]
[(x 4 pi )2 + (x 5 qi )2 ][(x 8 pi )2 + (x 9 qi )2 ]
+ x 3[m i (x 8 pi ) + n i (x 9 qi )]
[(x 4 pi )2 + (x 5 qi )2 ][(x 6 pi )2 + (x 7 qi )2 ]
Bi roi [(x 4 pi )2 + (x 5 qi )2 ]
[(x 6 pi )2 + (x 7 qi )2 ][(x 8 pi )2 + (x 9 qi )2 ]
(i = 1, 2, . . . , 10)
(12)
and

m i = k(qi sin i pi cos i )

n i = k(qi cos i + pi sin i )


r = p2 + q 2
oi

(13)

where Bi is the magnetic flux density sensed by magnetic

sensor Si , i is the angle between the direction of Si and
the tangential line at Si location, and ( pi , qi ) is the position
of Si . Hence, m i , n i , roi , pi , qi , and i are known as the
geometry parameters for magnetic sensor Si in the form of
real numbers and Bi is a complex number.
In addition, the following inequality constraints are applied:
MAXcurrent < |x 1 |, |x 2 |, |x 3 | < MAXcurrent

x 2j + x 2j +1 < MAXradius, j = 4, 6, 8

(14)
(15)

where MAXcurrent denotes the maximum magnitude of current

which is defined according to the specific application.
MAXradius denotes the maximum inner radius of the circle
for the sensor setup.
III. I MPLEMENTATION AND S IMULATION
A numerical method is required to solve the nonlinear
problem as given in (11)(13). Heuristic evolutionary
computation is adopted considering its excellent performance
in solving multiobjectives optimization problems. Therefore, a
series of evolutionary algorithms including improved particle
swarm optimization (IPSO) [19], shuffled frog-leaping
algorithm
(SFLA)
[20],
imperialist
competitive
algorithm (ICA) [21], and differential evolution (DE) [22]
is investigated in this section.
Fig. 3 shows the layout of the magnetic sensor arrays
utilized in the simulation with the detailed parameters given
in Table I. Five pairs of sensors are located around the cable
and form a regular pentagon shape. Two sensors are positioned
in each location, where one is along the tangential direction
and the other is along the direction of 30 to the tangent line.

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TABLE I
PARAMETERS FOR THE M AGNETIC S ENSORS IN S IMULATION

Fig. 3.

Layout of magnetic sensors in simulation study.

A. Implementation Procedure
There are two types of constraints encountered in the present
problem including equality and inequality constraints. The
inequality constraints are presented in (14) and (15) and the
equality constraints are given in (12). Penalty factors are added
to the inequality constraints so that if any of the inequality
constraints is violated, the violation amount is multiplied by
a high constant coefficient (1000 in this paper). The absolute
value of each equation in (12) can be considered as an error
value that should be as close to zero as possible. Therefore,
the objective function (OF) is introduced in the computation
which is defined as the summation of these errors and the
penalties as in (16). The goal of applying the evolutionary
algorithms is to minimize the OF through multiple iterations
OF =

10

|Fi (X)| + 1000

i=1
3

(max(abs(x i ), MAXcurrent ) MAXcurrent ) + 1000

i=1
4 


max



2 + x2

MAX
.
x 2k
,
MAX
radius
radius
2k+1

k=2

(16)
Since the AC currents are represented by complex numbers,
to simplify the problem, the unknowns are considered to be
U = [x 1R , x 1I , x 2R , x 2I , x 3R , x 3I , x 4 , x 5 , . . . , x 9 ]

(17)

Fig. 4.

Flowchart for the currents computation algorithm.

where x 1R , x 2R , x 3R and x 1I , x 2I , x 3I are real and imaginary

parts of x 1 , x 2 , x 3 , respectively. Thus, the dimension of the
optimization problem is 12. For improving the performance
of the optimization algorithms, it is noted that knowing
x 4 , x 5 , x 6 , x 7 , x 8 , and x 9 , the values of x 1R , x 2R , x 3R ,
and x 1I , x 2I , and x 3I could be calculated using any
three equations out of the 10 equations described
in (11) (separating the equations into real and imaginary
parts). In other words, once the cable positions are
assumed, the cable currents could be calculated using
a matrix multiplication. Therefore, only the conductor
positions are included in the optimization process. As a
result, this method can significantly improve the computation
efficiency by reducing the search space dimension of the
problem from 12 to 6. The flowchart of the algorithm is
shown in Fig. 4.
It can be seen from (11)(13) that when the positions of
the three conductors are obtained (x 4 , x 5 , . . . , x 9 are known),

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TABLE II
S IMULATION R ESULTS O BTAINED BY D IFFERENT C OMPUTATION M ETHODS

Fig. 5.

CRs of DE for different cases.

(11) becomes a three-variable linear equation. The equation

set in (18) can be formed by selecting any three sensors

K 1a Ia + K 1b Ib + K 1c Ic = B1
K 2a Ia + K 2b Ib + K 2c Ic = B2
(18)

K 3a Ia + K 3b Ib + K 3c Ic = B3
where Ia , Ib , and Ic are the three unknown currents,
B1 , B2 , and B3 denote the magnetic flux density sensed
by the selected three magnetic sensors, K ia , K ib , and K ic
(i = 1, 2, 3) are real numbers and denote the corresponding
geometry parameters for the three sensors based on calculation
from (11) to (13). Then the three currents can be determined as
[I]31 = [K ]1
33 [B]31

(19)

where [B]31 denotes the magnetic flux density sensed by

the three sensors, [I]31 represent the AC currents flowing
through the conductors, and [K ]33 is the coefficient matrix
comprising the I-B relationship.
B. Simulation Results
Four evolutionary algorithms including IPSO, SFLA, ICA,
and DE are implemented to solve the current computation
problem using MATLAB. A total of 13 independent cases are
conducted to evaluate the performances of those methods. For
each method, the population size and maximum number of

iterations are 400 and 500, respectively. Due to the random

nature of evolutionary methods, there is no guarantee that
it can find the correct solution in every single run. Therefore, for each case a number of independent runs should
be performed to ensure that the correct solution is found.
The minimum, mean, and maximum values of OFs obtained
from 50 runs of simulation are given in Table II. Meanwhile,
the mean simulation time for each method are listed in the
first column of Table II. In order to clearly demonstrate and
evaluate the performance of each algorithm, the values for the
13 cases are averaged and listed in the last column of Table II.
A PC configured with a 3.1-GHz Intel Core i5-3450 CPU and
8 GB of RAM is employed for the simulation study.
The predefined solutions are used to examine whether
the algorithm is converged to the correct results or not.
By conducting preliminary simulations, it is found that when
the value of OF is less than 1, an accuracy of the current
solution of below 2% can be achieved while the estimated
positions are extremely close to the real ones. That solution
can be considered as an accurate solution for the problem.
If the objective function is larger than 1, the algorithm may be
converged to a solution with low accuracy. Thus, the value of
the OF is considered as a threshold to effectively compare the
performances of different methods. The index VOF is therefore
defined as the number of solutions for which the OF values are
less than 1, which is important for indicating the convergence
rate (CR) of each method.
It can be seen from Table II that all the implemented
methods converged to the correct solution in different cases
while DE outperforms other algorithms despite the relatively
long processing time of 43.5 s. The minimum VOF for
DE is 28 whereas this value can be as low as 0, 1, and 3 for
IPSO, SFLA, and ICA, respectively. It can also be observed
from the averaged values that DE method achieves the highest
averaged VOF and lowest averaged values of OFs among the
four algorithms. Moreover, the averaged converge rate is 90%
(45 out of 50) for DE method which further confirms its
superior performance.

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TABLE III
S IMULATION R ESULTS O BTAINED BY A PPLYING DE M ETHOD

Fig. 6.

Combined uncertainty for the measured current. (a) Uncertainty of current magnitude. (b) Uncertainty of current phase angle.

In order to further investigate the robustness of the

DE method, 52 independent cases are simulated with 50 runs
for each case by applying DE. The minimum, mean,
maximum, and standard deviation of OFs are summarized
in Table III. The population size and the iteration number
are 400 and 1000, respectively. The mean computation time
is 78.5 s. In terms of the values of index VOF , it is found
that in 2569 out of 2600 independent runs DE converges to
the correct solution with high accuracy. More than 90% of the
cases (47 out of 52 cases) converge to the best (or close to
best) solution as the standard deviations are close to zero.

A CR is further defined as in (20) for better demonstrating

the performance of the DE method
CR =

VOF
100%
Nr

(20)

where Nr is the total number of independent runs for

each case.
Consequently, the CR values for each case are illustrated
in Fig. 5. In 47 cases, DE achieved 100% CR with a minimum
of 70% CR for one case only. Undoubtedly, the DE method

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Fig. 7.

Illustration of experimental bench setup. (a)Photograph. (b) Diagram of experiment setup.

Fig. 8.

Layout of magnetic sensor array in the experiments.

shows reliable performance in finding high-accuracy solutions

under different scenarios.
C. Uncertainty Evaluation
In order to assess the measurement uncertainty, two main
sources have been considered: the accuracy of the coefficient
matrix [K ]33 and the sensor noises [16]. If the noises are
superimposed on the signal samples with a variance 2 ,
the variances of the two variables Bre and Bim are 2 2 /Ns
(Ns is the sample rate). Considering the sensitivity ST of the
sensors, the currents can be expressed as
[I]31 = [K ]1
33 [ST ]31 [B]31 .

(21)

The sensor sensitivity is 1 V/T at 60 Hz, 25 C. The variance

of the sensor sensitivity is mainly due to the temperature
dependence [23].
The estimated uncertainty of the currents can be represented
by the covariance matrix of the estimated quantities [24]
as in
2 2
[K ]1 [ST ].
(22)
Ns
The variance of the current amplitude and the current
phase are related to the real and imaginary parts of the
currents [16]. The combined uncertainties of the measured
current amplitudes and phases are obtained by conducting
Monte Carlo simulations. The simulation was conducted for a
three-phase balanced system. Fig. 6 presents the results of one
phase as the other two are nearly identical to this one. It is
found that the uncertainty of the current amplitude increases
with the cable currents. The uncertainty of the current phase
COV[I] =

Fig. 9.

Flowchart of the conductor position calibration process.

angle decreases drastically in the low current range below 3 A

and remains almost constant at high currents.
IV. E XPERIMENTAL V ERIFICATION
Comprehensive laboratory experiments have been
conducted to validate the proposed current measurement
method for multiconductor cables. The practical measurement
procedure is carried out in two stages: 1) conductor position
calibration and 2) current calculation. In the first stage, the
numerical computation method is employed to attain the
exact positions of the conductors in the cable in an off-line
manner. The DE method is utilized in this stage because of
its superior performance explored in the simulation study.
When the coefficient matrix is determined, the three-phase

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Fig. 12.
Fig. 10.

Basic cable configurations. (a) Unsymmetrical. (b) Symmetrical.

Fig. 11.

Experimental result for the position calibration.

Measurement results for the three-phase balanced currents.

AC currents are calculated in real time based on (19) in the

second stage.
A. Experimental Bench Setup
An experimental bench is set up as illustrated in Fig. 7. The
sensor array is clamped on a plastic conduit that accommodates three power conductors. A three-phase voltage source
supplies adjustable three-phase delta-connected resistive loads
at the remote end. The values of the three-phase currents
were measured by the current probes Fluke i1000s as the
reference. Meanwhile, the outputs of the 10 magnetic sensors
are collected by a data-acquisition system consisting of an
NI-DAQ instrument and a laptop, which processes the data
based on the proposed computation method.
As shown in Fig. 7, the proposed measurement method
does not require the sensor array enclosing the conductors
in closed loop, which indicates that the sensor array can be
conveniently installed. In this paper, one-axis pick-up coil
sensors are selected due to their low cost, high sensitivity,

Fig. 13.
Measurement results for the three-phase unbalanced currents.
(a) IR:5%. (b) IR:10%. (c) IR:20%.

and compact size. The AC magnetic field produced by the

conductor currents induces a voltage in the coil sensor, which
is processed by the designed signal conditioning circuit. The
sensitivity of the voltage to the magnetic flux density is
tuned as 1 (V/Gauss) within the error of 0.1 mV by the
signal conditioning circuit. However, it is noteworthy that
other types of magnetic sensors such as Hall Effect sensor,

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MENG et al.: MAGNETIC SENSOR ARRAY-BASED AC CURRENT MEASUREMENT FOR MULTICONDUCTOR CABLES

Fig. 14.

Varied current magnitude waveform.

anisotropic magnetoresistance sensor, and giant magnetoresistance sensor [1] with proper sensitivity would also work for
this application.
The layout of the 10 magnetic sensors in the experiments
is depicted in Fig. 8. All the sensors are located in the
same plane which is perpendicular to the axis of the cable.
The position of each sensor ( pi , qi ) and its measurement axis
direction are calibrated in the manufacturing process of the
shown prototype.
B. Experimental Results
Extensive experiments are conducted for evaluating the
performance of the proposed current measurement method.
In particular, the position calibration and current calculation
are tested separately.
1) Conductor Position Calibration Test: Since the
calibration process will directly affect the accuracy of current
measurements, multiple simultaneously recorded snapshots
from the three-phase current waveforms are utilized instead of
single sample. In this way, the conductor position estimation
errors of the proposed algorithm can be reduced. Extensive
case studies revealed that five samples are appropriate to
finalize the calibration results. Further increase in the number
of samples simply increases the computation time while not
achieving significant improvements on the results.
Fig. 9 shows the flowchart of the conductor position
calibration process to generate the essential matrix [K ]33 .
For each sample, 10 independent runs were performed
with the DE algorithm. The result with the minimum OF is
considered as the best position for that sample. Five samples
result in five candidate conductor position estimations. Finally,
the average of these five candidates is adopted as the
calibration result for this installation. The obtained geometry
parameters (x 4 , x 5 , . . . , x 9 ) are stored in the memory and
substituted into (11)(13) for selected three sensors to form
K ia , K ib , K ic (i = 1, 2, 3). Once [K ]33 is determined, the
current measurement can be achieved in real time with little
computation burden.
Two cases with unsymmetrical and symmetrical cables
configurations are designed for the position calibration
experiments, as shown in Fig. 10. In addition, the unsymmetrical case [Fig. 10(a)] is rotated by 120 clockwise and
counterclockwise to form two additional conductor layouts.
Fig. 11 presents the actual cable positions versus the estimated

results for the four cases. The computation results are found to
be highly close to the actual conductor positions in the cable.
2) Current Calculation Test: The estimated conductor
positions are utilized to calculate the live currents based
on (19). Fig. 12 shows the experimental results comparing
the calculated currents with the measured currents.
The three conductors are laid out symmetrically in the cable
(as case 2 in the position calibration test) and the three-phase
currents are balanced. The results indicate that the three-phase
AC currents can be accurately calculated and effectively
decoupled by the proposed current measurement method.
Additional tests are performed when the three-phase AC
currents i a , i b , and i c are unbalanced which is common in
practice. An imbalance ratio (IR) is defined as follows to
represent different unbalanced levels in the experiments:
IR =

i0
100%
ip

(23)

where i 0 is the zero sequence current and i p is the positive

sequence current. The two currents are determined by

i 0 = (i a + i b + i c )
3
(24)


1

j
120

j
120
i p = i a + e
ib + e
ic .
3
Fig. 13 shows the experimental results for the three-phase
imbalance currents with different unbalanced levels.
The imbalance currents are realized by injecting single
phase load into the test system. The experimental results
reveal that the unbalance of the three-phase currents does not
induce any additional errors.
3) Current Measurement Error Analysis: In order to
further access the accuracy and robustness of the proposed
current measurement method, 180-s data are recorded as
shown in Fig. 14 in the case of a three-phase balanced system
(hence, only a phase current is plotted) for the error analysis.
By adjusting the loads, the current (rms) of each phase is
changed from 1.5 to 10 A for examining the performance
of the sensor array in different signal strengths. In the
following, the error refers to the computed currents in comparison with the values from the Fluke i1000s current probes
(the currents measured by Fluke Fluke i1000s are adopted
as the actual currents). Both of the computed and measured
current data are processed by the fast Fourier transform

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT

Fig. 15.

Error analysis of three-phase current magnitudes. (a) Current magnitude errors. (b) CDF analysis of three-phase current magnitude.

Fig. 16.

Error analysis of three-phase current phase angles. (a) Current phase angle errors. (b) CDF analysis of three-phase current phase angles.

to extract the 60-Hz components. The current magnitude

error Mager and phase angle error Anger are introduced and
defined as
||Ical,60 | |Iact,60 ||
100%
(25)
Mager =
|Iact,60 |
Anger = |cal,60 act,60 |
(26)

where Ical,60 and Ical,60 are the calculated and actual currents
at 60 Hz, and cal,60 and cal,60 are the phase angles of the
calculated and actual current at 60 Hz, respectively.
To quantify the measurement error of the proposed current
measurement system, Mager and Anger are characterized
by the cumulative error possibility distribution, which is

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MENG et al.: MAGNETIC SENSOR ARRAY-BASED AC CURRENT MEASUREMENT FOR MULTICONDUCTOR CABLES

commonly known as the cumulative distribution function (cdf)

analysis [25]. The error analysis of the current magnitude
is illustrated in Fig. 15. It is observed from Fig. 15(a) that
the major big error is contributed by the light loads, i.e., the
current less than 2 A. This is mainly due to the weak magnetic
field generated by the small current which is more sensitive
to the surrounding ambient magnetic fields. Nevertheless,
from Fig. 15(b) it is very promising that the fundamental
current (60 Hz) magnitude errors are always within 5%.
Fig. 16 demonstrates the analysis of the phase angle
error Anger . Similarly, Anger dramatically decreases with
increase in the current magnitude. The maximum phase angle
error is 8 for phase C when the current is around 1.5 A.
However, this is considered to be acceptable as many
expensive clamp-on current probes with high precision have
a phase deviation of 5 when measuring small currents [26].
Such a current probe is capable of measuring single-conductor
current only. By contrast, the method developed in this paper
can measure three-phase currents simultaneously.
V. C ONCLUSION
This paper has presented a novel and effective technique for
measuring AC currents in multiconductor cables. The currents
are computed by employing a set of magnetic sensor array
measurements and evolutionary computation algorithms. The
proposed magnetic sensor array-based technique represents
an innovative solution to overcome the major challenge for
inferring the individual conductor current in an enclosed or
bundled multiple conductor group. In addition, the problem
has been significantly simplified by the assumption of knowing
sensor positions and orientations, which can be achieved
through the manufacturing process.
The following are the main contributions of this paper.
1) The proposition of a low-cost and easy-to-install current
measurement system.
2) The mathematical modeling of the problem and a
performance evaluation comprising various evolutionary
algorithms including the IPSO, SFLA, ICA, and DE.
3) The adoption of the DE algorithm to implement the
conductor position calibration and current computation.
4) The extensive experiment tests to validate the proposed
technique. The experiment results sufficiently corroborated the distinguished performance of the proposed
current measurement method.
Throughout the experiments, the measurement errors were
confirmed to be less than 5%. This accuracy can be potentially
improved by utilizing a proper shielding scheme to eliminate
the effects of outside crosstalk magnetic field. In addition to
employing a proper magnetic materiel to shield the sensor
array, a specific scheme can also be utilized to eliminate the
magnetic field generated by other conductors. For example,
Bourkeb et al. [18] performed a proper orthogonal decomposition computing method for reducing the influences of external
conductors. Future research can be extended to: 1) elimination
of effects from other crosstalk magnetic fields; 2) development
of a portable apparatus based on the proposed technique;
and 3) applications of such apparatus in different types
of cables.

11

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT

[25] J. E. Gentle, Computational Statistics. New York, NY, USA:

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Lichan Meng received the Ph.D. degree in electrical

engineering from the Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hong Kong, in 2012.
She was an Electrical Engineer with Emerson
Network Power Company Ltd., Shanghai, China,
from 2007 to 2009. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow
with the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB,
Canada, from 2012 to 2013. Her current research
interests include power electronics, smart grid, and
magnetic field and thermal field analysis.

Pengfei Gao (S10) received the B.S. and

M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering from the
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China,
in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer
engineering with the University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB, Canada.
His current research interests include smart
grid, adaptive sensor array technique, and power
signaling technology.

Moosa Moghimi Haji (S10) received the

B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the
Iran University of Science and Technology,
Tehran, Iran, in 2008, and the M.Sc. degree
in electrical engineering from the Amirkabir
University of Technology, Tehran, in 2011. He is
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical
and computer engineering with the University of
Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
His current research interests include power
quality, power system stability, and application of
artificial intelligence in power systems.

Wilsun Xu (M90SM95F05) received the

Ph.D. degree from the University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, BC, USA, in 1989.
He is currently an NSERC/iCORE Industrial
Research Chair Professor with the University
of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. His current
research interests include power quality and power
disturbance analytics.