Polarimetric road condition classification and data visualisation

The automobile industry has been continuously involved in efforts to improve driving conditions and comfort. Therefore Daimler Benz is interested in finding new techniques to monitor the road traffic conditions in order to make the information available for other electronic on-board systems. For this purpose a full polarimetric, incoherent microwave radar system for Mueller-matrix measurements was designed. It works at 76 GHz, employing 5 Impatt oscillators and 7 Shottky detectors. Special software tools for classification and visualisation of the acquired data has been developed. The paper introduces this system and describes its functionality as well as the concept of the data processing software. Measurement results are shown.