Wireless magnetic based sensor system for road traffic data collection

A complete pre-industrial prototype implementation of an innovative system capable to detect, classify and describe passing vehicles, is presented. This work studies the architecture of an autonomous road sensor network to help reducing the impact of conventional magnetic wired systems in roads. The power supply is supported by no rechargeable batteries, for communications, the IEEE 802.15.4 with ZigBee on top are used to transmit digitalized vehicle’s magnetic signatures up to classification server. This information is acquired using a magnetometer translating in voltage the variation of the
Earth’s natural magnetic field caused by ferromagnetic components, induced by vehicles. Results show clear and distinguish magnetic signatures among different vehicles.