Characterization of pulsed direct current (PDC) as driving circuit for fringing electric field (FEF) sensor / Nur Aziela Ahmad

This thesis presents a study of Pulsed Direct Current (PDC) as driving circuit for Fringing Electric Field (FEF) sensor. This study is to implement the PDC concept on drive circuit of FEF as the PDC circuit has been designed, simulated and tested while connecting to FEF sensor. The voltage of PDC waveform is variable as it rises up and down along the wave and it maintains a single positive or negative polarity. The study is to investigate the characterization of using Pulsed Direct Current to drive the FEF sensor. Since the FEF sensors are widely used for non-invasive measurements, Pulsed Direct Current used as to make it more reliable and cost effective. This thesis also presents both simulation and experimental data to characterize the circuit on FEF sensor. The results show that the trend pattern of both simulation and experiment are similar as the capacitance is increasing, the peak-to-peak voltage increased. The results obtained also show that pulsed direct current has a linear capacitance-voltage characteristic when tested with ceramic capacitors and FEF sensors. Both output results for ceramic capacitor and FEF sensor in experiment are about the same.