Electric vehicles have a shorter range and longer ”electrical filling up“ times than do conventional vehicles. For optimum navigation as regards trip time and distance travelled, it is important to have up-to-date local information: details of traffic jams, battery charging prices and destination accessibility.

IMMS’ role was the R&D on a sensor system to register such data as the number, type and speed of the vehicles. The magnetic field sensors relied on by the Institute serve to measure traffic flow on the ”tactile road“. Passively, the system registers local changes to the earth’s magnetic field caused by passing vehicles. From what is detected, the vehicle type can be classified and its speed determined.

The particular system solution which IMMS has developed registers this data wirelessly, collects it in a gateway near to grouped detectors and then sends it to a data concentrator in the traffic control centre of the model town, Erfurt, in central Germany. There, the new wireless sensor network complements the data capture methods already in place, allowing traffic data to be registered in finer detail than before.