AJ Fowowe, Director of Offering Management for Electrification and Gas Sensing at Honeywell, addresses the rise of electrification and explains why the right components — and current sensors in particular — are essential for successfully implementing this trend and optimizing and safeguarding electric systems.
Extensive global interest in electrification is reshaping entire industries and generating massive growth opportunities, as manufacturers and consumers alike strive to be more sustainable and slow global warming. Although electrification efforts in the automotive and transportation industries are amongst the most prominent, power fuels every industry, and organizations in each are increasingly attempting to replace fossil fuels with cleaner and greener energy sources. Participating in this shift in the global power paradigm requires some pretty significant transformations — spanning power grids all the way down to individual electronic components — to ensure efficiency and safety. To learn more about component-level electrification solutions, we spoke with Ajibola “AJ” Fowowe, the Director of Offering Management for Electrification and Gas Sensing at Honeywell. Here, AJ addresses the rise of electrification megatrend before deep diving into a crucial component: current sensors. Dive into our interview to learn more about what they do, the role they play in electric systems, and a few Honeywell current sensors ideal for use in these applications.
Q1. Hi AJ Please introduce yourself and tell us about your role at Honeywell.
I started at Honeywell eight years ago as a product design engineer in the aerospace industry, and I’ve had the opportunity to pivot and explore different roles. Currently, I’m the Director of Offering Management for Electrification and Gas Sensing. I studied electrical engineering at Covenant University in Nigeria, and then I pursued my master’s at UT-Arlington and joined Honeywell after grad school.
Q2. Please also provide us with a brief introduction to Honeywell.
We’re a global technology and manufacturing company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. Honeywell has a rich history and a diverse portfolio that spans four business groups: aerospace technologies, building automation, industrial automation, and energy and sustainability — all of which are driven by innovation intended to meet the diverse needs of the many markets we serve and incorporate global megatrends, like electrification. We have a very rich history of introducing breakthrough technologies that help customers enhance safety, productivity, and efficiency.
My business unit is called Honeywell Sensing Solutions and is headquartered in Richardson, Texas. Our primary focus is safety and productivity, and we develop sensors and switches optimized to service several different industries, including healthcare, industrial, and aerospace.
Q3. You joined us today to talk about electrification and current sensors. Electrification is a hugely impactful industrial market megatrend that seems to be gaining steam in many different segments. Tell us more.
Electrification is the process of altering and replacing technologies that are powered by fossil fuels, like internal combustion engines and gas boilers, with technologies designed to be powered by electricity. And while most people associate electrification with vehicles, it extends well beyond that. Electrification is actively underway in many different industries and is having a significant impact on the power generation, transportation, building automation, and industrial manufacturing industries in addition to the automotive industry.
Sustainability is a key benefit when it comes to electrification. The electrification megatrend is a subsector of the sustainability megatrend, which is largely driven by global warming. Since global warming is fueled by the accumulation of greenhouse gases, transitioning from fossil-fuel-based energy sources to clean energy sources will help reduce global emissions and improve the sustainability of industries that utilize a significant amount of power.
Electrified systems are also far more efficient. Fossil fuel systems, like internal combustion engines, typically max out around 70% efficiency, while electric systems, like EVs, typically exhibit efficiency rates greater than 80%. This increased efficiency can also offer cost savings.
To create electrified systems, you need a clean energy source, like a hydrogen fuel cell or lithium-ion battery system, and a power conversion system capable of transforming the direct current (DC) generated by these clean energy sources into alternating current (AC) that can be distributed on the grid and utilized in homes and businesses. You also need a control system to ensure that all of these operations are running efficiently. That’s where sensors come into play.
Sensors are used to monitor the condition of several different elements of electric systems. They can detect whether each component is working within its rated temperature range or at defined voltage and current levels to ensure equipment and operator safety and help prevent unplanned downtime. They also enable the closed-loop feedback system needed to align power transmission with load requirements and ensure that the system is compensating as needed for optimal performance.
Q4. Please talk to us about current sensors and the role they play in electrified industrial systems.
Current sensors measure the flow of electric current in a circuit and provide crucial information for various operations, including power management and condition monitoring. They’re essential for enabling proactive manual or automatic actions, like increasing efficiency, planning maintenance, or shutting down operations in response to unsafe operating conditions, and are required in every system that uses a lithium-ion battery, including EVs and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
There are several different types of current sensors that utilize different technologies. For example, there are open-loop Hall effect current sensors that exhibit very fast response times but lower accuracy and closed-loop Hall effect current sensors that generally exhibit higher accuracy. These are typically used in battery management systems (BMS) to monitor the current traveling in and out of the battery pack and prevent a thermal event. There are also high-accuracy flux gate current sensors. These typically have two different primary windings and secondary windings that kind of nullify one another to generate current readings. Additionally, all of these are non-contact sensors that are installed around the conductive path, without any direct contact with the primary line of current flow, which improves reliability and extends their useful lifetimes.
Inline current sensors use shunt technology to measure current and are installed directly in line with the current flow, usually connected to a busbar or conductor, which leads to power loss caused by heat and can negatively affect efficiency. These sensors are typically more cost-effective than non-contact options and are a reasonable solution for systems that don’t generate too much heat. But many customers prefer non-contact current sensor technologies because they carry less risk while still typically offering highly accurate measurements.
Q5. Can you give us an example of a common application and some essential current sensor considerations for application success?
Sure. I’ll use an example we’re all familiar with, electric vehicles. Internal combustion engines have a fuel gauge that tells you how much fuel you have left in your vehicle so you know when to go to a gas station. With electric vehicles, you need to monitor the amount of charge left to know whether you can make it from point A to point B. EVs have lithium-ion battery packs that both store energy and power the electric drivetrain and rely on current sensors and battery management systems to estimate the amount of charge you have left. So, they require high-performance and high-accuracy current sensors. Vehicle manufacturers don’t want to put customers in a situation where they think they have a 10% charge left but really only have 2%. That wouldn’t be good for business.
Automotive design engineers also have to ensure that electric drivetrain systems are working within defined operating conditions. So, matching current sensor ratings to electric drivetrain ratings is essential, as a mismatch could damage the entire system and expose vehicle operators to risk. Another way that current sensors help minimize electrical risks in EVs is monitoring the current flowing in and out of the battery to keep tabs on the health status of the system’s battery pack and alert operators to potential hazards before risks are imminent.
Q6. Please introduce us to Honeywell’s current sensors.
We have a rich history of designing and manufacturing high-quality current sensors and have recently leveraged our extensive experience and expertise in this space to develop a number of current sensors that are specifically designed for electric vehicle applications and subjected to robust testing and validation processes to ensure their quality, performance, and durability.
We leveraged our legacy current sensors portfolio and technology, enhancing them to meet today’s higher amperage application needs while still maintaining a very high degree of accuracy. Our portfolio now offers many different current sensors based on several different technologies to satisfy a wide range of application demands with a well-balanced price-performance ratio.
The feedback we keep getting from our customers that I think sets us apart is that the accuracy and performance of our current sensors are consistent throughout their operating temperature range. Competing solutions often exhibit some performance abnormalities as the parts approach the extreme ends of their rated temperature range, and particularly as they approach -40°C and 85°C. Honeywell developed a patented multi-point compensation algorithm that ensures consistent performance, within the defined limits, throughout the rated operating temperature range, which helps improves the overall efficiency of the systems they’re designed into.
Our current sensors are also available with different communication outputs, including analog outputs and CAN2.0 outputs. This is important because many industrial applications require analog outputs, while many automotive and transportation systems utilize CAN communication protocols that unlock additional diagnostics features. Our designs make it easy for customers to integrate our current sensors into their systems and leverage benefits including accuracy, reliability, stability, durability, and integrated diagnostic functions.
Q7. Please introduce us to Honeywell’s CSNV Series current sensors.
The CSNV Series is one of our top sellers, and within it we have the 500 Series and the 700 Series, which — while they utilize different technologies — are both designed to monitor the health of battery systems and widely used in industrial applications with clean energy sources. The 500 Series (below left) uses closed-loop Hall effect technology, while the 700 Series (below right) uses flux gate technology. We offer both options to give customers more flexibility depending on their needs and, specifically, whether their priority is accuracy or a zero offset error.
Both series exhibit best-in-class accuracy within their current sensing range and utilize multi-point temperature calibration to maintain that accuracy throughout the rated operating temperature range (-40°C to 85°C). They’re also both designed to maintain accuracy in environments with electromagnetic interference (EMI), which is common in electrification applications since there are typically multiple bus bars or conductors within a very small space.
In addition, many of our CSNV current sensors have a mounting hole with a bushing that improves their robustness and eases installation by ensuring that they’re properly mounted. They also offer flexibility from a board rate standpoint and can satisfy a variety of frequency and data speed requirements. In some applications, 250kbps is good enough. Others might require 500kbps. When it comes to Baud rate, some applications need the information frequently and fast while others don’t need it as frequently. We provide customers with options for both.
Q8. Please introduce us to Honeywell’s CSHV Series current sensors.
The CSHV Series offers cost-effective current sensors that provide customers with an attractive balance of performance and cost and are easy to install and integrate into systems. CSHV sensors are primarily used for fault detection and isolation applications in electric drives, including variable frequency drives (VFDs), large, heavy-duty industrial motors, and hybrid and electric vehicles. These applications prioritize fast response times over high accuracy, which makes sense, because if an electric motor is drawing more current than expected, you’d want to quickly detect that and isolate it to protect the system. In these situations, microseconds can make all the difference, and the CSHV exhibits a response time of just six microseconds.
The CSHV Series utilizes Hall effect sensing technology. Current-carrying conductors generate a magnetic field, and Hall effect sensors measure the intensity of these magnetic fields and convert them into an equivalent current measurement, providing users with an indirect way of measuring the current flowing through a conductor.
The series is also designed to broadly applicable industry standards, offers REACH and RoHS compliance, and uses AEC-Q100 qualified components.
Q9. Please introduce us to Honeywell’s CSSV Series current sensors.
The CSSV Series is one of our flagship products for automotive applications because it’s designed to meet Automotive Safety Integrity Level C (ASIL C) reliability and safety standards. It delivers best-in-class accuracy of 0.5%, exhibits strong electromagnetic immunity to ensure consistent performance in high-density electronics applications, and is fully redundant, featuring a dual sensing element designed to improve its reliability and robustness in high-reliability automotive applications. This multi-sensing scheme is the CSSV Series’ most unique characteristic, offering critical redundancy for applications in which sensor failure could have a catastrophic effect, whether that’s costly downtime or the loss of life or assets. There are multiple microprocessors and microcontrollers within these sensors to ensure that, even if one of the building blocks fails, backups will reliably ensure that the system continues to run as expected while also alerting users to the fact that there’s an issue.
Q10. Is there anything else you’d like our listeners to know about electrification, Honeywell, or Honeywell current sensors?
I want customers to know that we support customization requests. Because we are very innovation focused, we are always looking for new ways that we can help customers overcome common challenges and increase the value that our products provide. We’re always open to discussing new technologies or new problems that customers are trying to solve, or even new ways that we should package our current sensors to meet specific application needs.
Optimize and Safeguard Your Electrified Systems With Honeywell Current Sensors From RS
Honeywell is a global technology leader dedicated to making the world smarter, safer, and more sustainable through innovations optimized for the aerospace, building automation, energy and sustainability, and industrial automation industries. Honeywell Sensing Solutions provides a comprehensive portfolio of precise and reliable sensing, switching, and test and measurement technologies designed to meet the diverse needs of critical applications in the healthcare, transportation, industrial automation, and electric vehicle industries.
The RS portfolio of Honeywell products includes the CSNV, CSHV, and CSSV Series current sensors A.J. introduced here, along with a wide variety of other sensors, switches, and electrical components. To learn more about Honeywell Sensing Solutions, visit their website or check out their other RS Expert Advice content. For assistance identifying, procuring, deploying, and maintaining Honeywell current sensors sure to satisfy your unique application demands, please contact your local RS representative at 1.866.433.5722 or reach out to the RS technical support team.
