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What's the most accurate method for measuring current?

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Stewie911

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What is the best way to measure current. It must be very accurate. Current can go as high as 1A.
It is basically current going into ground, so at the moment I am thinking of a precision 50 milli-ohm resistor just before ground with a 16bit ADC just before the resistor. The ADC has programmable gain of about 8 and I will use an OPAMP before the ADC that will also give gain.

As the current goes higher, the resolution doesn't have to be that good anymore.
For example:
0 - 10mA : possibly 50uA, but at least 100uA accuracy.
10-100mA : maybe 500uA accuracy
100mA - 1A : 1mA - 5mA accuracy.

Is there maybe a better way, like hall effect current sensors?
 

Re: current measurement

Direct (shunt) measurement is simple and accurate, although a chopper stabilized amplifier would be needed for the 2.5 uV voltage accuray required by your specification with a 50 mΩ shunt. A higher shunt resistance would be usual, I think.
A hall sensor isn't accurate enough without a true current compensating magnetical circuit.
 

current measurement

I agree with higher resistance because the resistance value is more stable in case of temperature fluctuation. Don't forget to calculate the trace length, total resistance is included with trace resistance.
 

current measurement

I didn't mention explicitely, but a low-ohmic shunt measurement has to use a 4-wire connection of the shunt in any case, otherwise the said accuracy specifications would be just an illusion.
 

Re: current measurement

Stewie911 said:
Is there maybe a better way, like hall effect current sensors?
Click to expand...
Resistive current sensor is a good approach for 1A. Here's an app note on current sensing, which compares resistive and hall-effect sensors: **broken link removed**

FvM said:
I didn't mention explicitely, but a low-ohmic shunt measurement has to use a 4-wire connection of the shunt in any case, otherwise the said accuracy specifications would be just an illusion.
Click to expand...
Yes - 4-terminal resistor is ideal for this method. In the US they are relatively easy to obtain. Caddock makes them and sells them through Mouser and DigiKey. An alternative would be to use a simpler resistor and make a calibration curve. Also, SMT chip resistors have lower parasitic lead resistance.
 

current measurement

Ok, I've got a 0.1ohm 4-terminal sense resistor.
The minimum current I want to measure is 100uA.
I now want to amplify the voltage with a non-inverting amplifier with gain of about 20.
That gives me minimum 200uA, and with the 16bit ADC and 2.5V reference, I can measure voltages as low as 38uV with maximum 3LSB error( which is kinda ok for me).

But when I run the circuit through LTSpice, then the circuit only 'works' for currents of about 20mA and higher. Is this because of the spice OPAMP module(generic) that I use?
If I use lower currents in spice, then the output is to high.

Any suggestions?
What about instrumentation amplifier in place of non-inverting amp?
 

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