Radar cross section measurement of road debris in 79 GHz-band

Abstract

Many automotive accidents are reported every year, some of which are attributed to fallen debris on road. For road debris detection, it would be difficult to find with imaging sensor while driving, especially in case of bad weather conditions such as rain and fog. The use of 79GHz-band ultra-wideband automotive radar is hence expected for road debris detection because of the high range-resolution and good weather resistance. The detection performance basically depends on the radar cross section (RCS) of road debris. For example, the maximum detection range is proportional to one quarter of the RCS. However, there is no report regarding to the RCS as far as the authors know. This paper presents the RCS characteristics of 11 typical road debris for 79GHz-band radar available in automotive radar which is also compared with 24GHz-band.