Multi-loop inductive sensor model for vehicle traffic applications

•An accurate model of inductive loop detectors for use in traffic management systems is proposed.•The model takes into account the parts of the vehicle outside the coil and the lateral displacement over it.•The model shows a better match with real inductive signatures that the previous standard approach.•Although mainly developed for traffic management systems it can be extended to other inductive applications.

In this paper we develop an accurate sensor model for inductive loop detectors which are commonly used in traffic management systems. The model is based on rectangular coils and can be readily used for the analysis of vehicle inductive signatures, but it can be easily extended to other applications such as eddy-current non-destructive testing, magnetic resonance or induction heating. Our proposed model considers both flat and non-flat vehicle profiles and exhibits better performance than the standard approach under all the tested scenarios.