Impact of Coupled Ground Wire Interference on the Precision of Electric Field Sensors

Abstract

Electric field measurement holds immense significance in various domains. The power supply and signal acquisition units of the sensor may be coupled with ground wire interference, which could result in reduced measurement accuracy. Moreover, this problem is often ignored by researchers. This paper investigated the origin of ground coupling interference in electric field sensors and its impact on measurement accuracy. A miniature undistorted electric field sensor with wireless transmission was compared with existing D-dot, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and optical sensors. The results indicate that MEMS and D-dot exhibit diminished accuracy in measuring electric fields under uniform conditions, owing to interference from ground wires. In the case of transmission lines with non-uniform conditions, the wireless sensor exhibited a measurement error of 5%, whereas the optical sensor showed an error rate of approximately 8%. However, the D-dot sensor displayed a measurement error exceeding 50%, whereas the MEMS sensor yielded an error as high as 150%. This means that the wireless sensor isolates the ground-coupled interference signal and realizes the distortion-free measurement of the electric field. The wireless sensors will find extensive applications in new power systems for intelligent equipment status perception, fault warning, and other scenarios.