The Usage of High Voltage Amplifiers to Set up Reference Calibrators for Combined and Impulse Voltages up to 1 kV

Abstract

An approach to set up reference calibrators to generate combined voltages, using voltage amplifiers, has been demonstrated. Four high voltage amplifiers were tested and studied. Measurements and experiments have shown that this approach could be used to set up calibrators for combined voltages, at least up to 1 kV. The advantage is the flexibility to generate separate or combined wave shapes (combination of AC, DC, distorted shapes, double exponential impulses such as lightening and switching impulses). This method could be beneficial to the fields where impulses, combined or not with DC or AC voltages, need a reference calibrator to calibrate digitizers. This method, relatively cheaper and simple to develop, reaches high metrological performance. For example, for lightning impulses up to 900 V, the uncertainties are lower than 0.2 % for the peak voltage, 1 % for the front time and 0.5 % for the time to half value . The traceability to the international system of units can be ensured by characterizing the gain using a step response, followed by the convolution technique.