Double Magnetic Loop and Methods for Calculating Its Inductance

Abstract

Due to their simplicity and operating mode, magnetic loops are one of the most used traffic sensors in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). However, at this moment, their potential is not being fully exploited, as neither the speed nor the length of the vehicles can be surely ascertained with the use of a single magnetic loop. In this way, the vast majority of them are only being used to count vehicles on urban and interurban roads. For this reason, in order to contribute to the development of new traffic sensors and make roads safer, this paper introduces a theoretical study to explain the design and peculiarities of the innovative double loops, how to calculate their magnetic field and three different methods to calculate their inductance. Finally, the different inductance values obtained by these three methods will be analyzed and compared with experimental measurements carried out by our research group in order to know which method is more accurate and if all of them are equally reliable.