Airborne Road Traffic Monitoring with Radar

Abstract

To ensure mobility, future road traffic management needs actual and reliable information about the traffic over wide areas. Nowadays, outside of motorways the actual traffic situation is almost unknown due to the lack of sensor installations. Traffic monitoring with radar from high altitudes delivers a new approach which allows the capture of traffic data in wide areas and at every position in the road net. Radar can look through clouds and can operate independently of weather and sight conditions at day and night and it can detect vehicles independently of their instrumentation onboard. At the German Aerospace Center (DLR) the practical feasibility of airborne radar for road traffic management in general but also in specific situations of big events or occurred disasters is under investigation. This paper gives an overview over the actual status of project works and will present aspects for future applications of airborne radar for road traffic and disaster management.