Development of an AC Power Source for CSEM Method Using Full-bridge Switching Configuration

The electromagnetic (EM) method has been widely used in geophysical surveys. It is a non-destructive method that utilizes electromagnetic waves in characterizing subsurface profiles. Generally, EM method can be divided into passive EM and active EM. The passive EM uses the natural electromagnetic field sources, while the active EM or Controlled Source EM (CSEM) uses artificial source to generate electromagnetic wave. In this paper, we present the development of AC power source for CSEM transmitter. As the power source we used AC source with sine wave signal. To satisfy a high power and high voltage in the equipment, we used the full-bridge configuration switching. It works on 990 Hz maximum frequency, and can deliver maximum current of 1.9 A at 620 V. The switching is controlled by microcontroller using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) and the driver of inverter is built using IGBT. The output frequency can be varied from 1 Hz to 990 Hz. For varied frequencies the harmonic distortion is different due to switching speed. As frequency increase the harmonic distortion also increase. We found that the total harmonic distortion can be reduced to 1 % at the output with 330 Hz.