Development of fiber-optic current sensing technique and its applications in electric power systems

This paper describes the development and applications of a fiber-optic electric current sensing technique with the stable properties and compact, simple, and flexible structure of the sensing device. The special characteristics of the sensors were achieved by use of the special low birefringence fiber as the Faraday-effect sensing element and were also achieved with creation of sensing schemes which matched with the features of the fiber. Making use of the excellent features of the sensing technique, various current monitoring devices and systems were developed and applied practically for the control and maintenance in the electric power facility. In this paper, the design and performance of the sensing devices are introduced first. After that, examples of the application systems practically applied are also introduced, including fault section/point location systems for power transmission cable lines. © The Author(s) 2013.