Polarimetric Backscatter Measurements of Road Surfaces at J-Band Frequencies for Standoff Road Condition Assessment

This paper describes a set of measurements of the polarimetric backscattering coefficients of several road surfaces measured at near-grazing incidence. Surfaces studied include concrete, gravel, and asphalt, as well as asphalt covered with a thin layer of water, snow, or ice. For each surface and incidence angle, measurements of many independent samples were taken to examine the scattering statistics. The measurements were made using a new fully-polarimetric high-resolution instrumentation radar operating at the 230 – 248 GHz band.