Road Surface Roughness Estimation Using Polarimetric SAR Data

Abstract

The road surface roughness directly influences the grip and skid resistance of the vehicles. So, it has to be continuously monitored to keep track of its changes. The potential of airborne polarimetric SAR to remotely monitor the road surface roughness is investigated in this study using the fully polarimetric X-band F-SAR datasets acquired over the Kaufbeuren and Cologne test sites. The polarimetric analysis revealed that the anisotropy and coherency matrix (T3) elements are sensitive to the road surface roughness. Also, the SAR backscatter values have a very wide range from smooth to rough surfaces, so the SAR backscatter based empirical models for surface roughness estimation were investigated in this study.