Reflectance of interurban-road pavements from radar-based measurements

Abstract

Reflectance measurements in interurban-road typical pavements are essential for traffic security. The reflectance of interurban-road pavements presents high variability due to such variables as climatic and atmospheric conditions and the presence of foreign materials on the road (e.g. dirt, fuel or oil). For this reason, the recording of real-time measurements for these kinds of pavements is a complex task. However, its critical importance in traffic safety demands precise measurements under all the possible conditions. In this context, the use of remote-sensing systems working in the radar spectral range is of great interest. With active sensors that receive their own radar signal, the reflectance measurements made by the remote-sensing system are not influenced by the atmospheric conditions. In this work, we present a radar-based methodology to develop real-time measurements of the reflectance in typical interurban-road pavements. We are engaged in extending this new method to study the reflectance of interurban-road pavements within the visible spectrum.