Monitoring of road surface status using a passive millimeter wave sensor

The smart highway project, launched by the South Korean government, will deliver higher safety, mobility, convenience, and comfort, and is expected to address traffic congestion, road accidents, and other challenges as it meets the future demand for smart roads. In order to achieve these goals, a large amount of information is needed, including road conditions, vehicle status, driver conditions, and other useful data. In this paper, an experimental study aimed at detecting different road conditions (dry and wet) using a 94 GHz dual-channel polarimetric radiometer was conducted in an open-air laboratory, with an asphalt road surface as the target. Here, brightness temperatures are measured at horizontal and vertical polarizations for different road surface conditions. The measurements carried out on the target confirm that a 94 Ghz band polarimetric radiometer is able to detect different road surface conditions. In addition, it also demonstrates a more detailed description of dry and wet road surface conditions is possible. As such, use of a radiometer is expected to assist in the prevention of traffic accidents by offering rapid and accurate information to drivers.