Danisense current transducers used at CERN in particle booster PSU

Extreme accuracy and immunity to magnetic fields required by renowned international physics institution

Taastrup, Denmark, April 2109…Danisense, the leader in high-accuracy current transducers for demanding applications, has announced that its current transducers have been used by teams at CERN as part of a significant upgrade program. The Danisense zero-flux DC current transducers (DCCT) are used in the design of QTRIM power supplies for the PS booster accelerator which are part of a chain of accelerators that inject the beam into the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.

The upgrade, explains Miguel Cerqueira Bastos, team leader for the section at CERN which manages high precision current measurement for power supplies, will “increase the beam energy in the PS booster accelerator from 1.4GeV to 2GeV”. Stability and linearity in the order of 10ppm as well as noise performance of under 10ppm pk-pk for a 10kHz bandwidth were required for currents of 1000A – the quality of the beam is strongly dependent on the quality of the current measurement provided by Danisense. Other demanding specifications required by the CERN team included very high immunity to magnetic fields in the order of a few mT – which can be present in some locations – and tight noise controls on the outputs of better than 30ppm pk-pk with a 1MHz bandwidth.

Comments Loic Moreau, Sales & Marketing Director, Danisense A/S: “This is a significant win for Danisense, as it demonstrates the extreme accuracy of our Fluxgate technology and our ability to custom-build solutions for very demanding applications. In this instance we developed the CERN DCCT with a separate sensing head. We had to increase the magnetic shielding which is a complex process since it is built into the core windings. However, because we maintain all significant manufacturing processing in-house at our facility in Denmark, we were able to develop a solution and implement it quickly.

Concludes Bastos: “Danisense was very co-operative and willing to learn about our needs. In the end I believe that they have been able to improve the performance of some of their standard product range, so the experience has been beneficial for both sides.”