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The Impact of Adverse Weather Conditions on Autonomous Vehicles:

Examining how rain, snow, fog, and hail affect the performance of a self-
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Article in IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine · March 2019

DOI: 10.1109/MVT.2019.2892497

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The Impact of Adversary Weather
Conditions on Autonomous Vehicles
Shizhe Zang∗ (The University of Sydney), Ming Ding‡ , David Smith‡ , Paul Tyler‡ , Thierry
Rakotoarivelo‡ , Mohamed Ali Kaafar‡ (Data 61, CSIRO).
Recently, the development of autonomous vehicles and
intelligent driver assistance systems has drawn significant
amount of attention from the general public. One of the most
critical issues in the development of autonomous vehicles and
driver assistance systems is their poor performance under ad-
verse weather conditions such as rain, snow and fog.
However, up to now there has been no study, which provides
readers with a systematic and unified review about
the weather effect on various types of sensors, used in
autonomous vehicles. In this paper, we first present a literature
review about the impact of adverse weather conditions on
state-of-the-art sensors, such as light radar (LIDAR), global
positioning system (GPS), camera and radar. Then we propose
a new model to characterize the rain effect on millimeter-wave
(MMW) radar, which considers both the rain attenuation and
the backscatter effects. Our simulation results show that the
detection range of the MMW radar can be reduced by up to 55%
under severe rainfall conditions. Moreover, the rain backscatter
effect is significantly different for targets with different radar
cross- se c t i on areas.
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, the development of autonomous vehicles and
intelligent driver assistance systems has drawn significant
amount of attention from the public. In August 2013, a Mercedes-
Benz S-class vehicle called “Bertha” drove autonomously
without human intervention for about 100 km from Mannheim
to Pforzheim, Germany. Later in June 2016, Google tested their
fleet in autonomous mode over a total of 2,777,585 km. The
fleet included Audi TT, Toyota Prius, Lexus RX450h and
Google’s own cars. This advanced technology is not only able
to improve road safety, but also relieve the burden of many tasks
performed by a driver. This includes the following:
o Self-steering with lane recognition;
o Distance maintenance in platooning vehicles;
o Self-parking;
o Automatic braking systems with pedestrian recognition;

Wikipedia, “Google self-driving car — wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia,” Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=736369985
o Notification of traffic lights, signs, and so on.
Since the on-road driving environment is very complex and
dynamic, especially for the navigation and control systems, most
of the current autonomous vehicles are equipped with different
types of sensors. This enables systems to take advantage of their
respective strengths and obtain more accurate awareness of the
environment by means of fusion techniques. These sensors
include camera, light radar (LIDAR), radar, GPS and sonar.
Currently, one of the most critical issues in the development
of autonomous vehicles and driver assistance systems is their
poor performance under adverse weather conditions, such as
rain, snow and fog. In the case of bad weather, human vision is
degraded and proper functioning of driver assistance systems
becomes even more essential to drivers. Unfortunately, like
the human vision, these sensors are also negatively impacted
by adverse weather conditions. For example, rainy and foggy
conditions cause a significant degradation on the camera and
LIDAR [1]. Consequently, inaccurate information from sensors
can lead to wrong decisions and in turn car crashes. Therefore,
research on the sensor performance under adverse weather
conditions is particularly urgent for the development of
autonomous vehicles.
Research on the sensor degradation due to bad weather
conditions has emerged in recent decades. For example, the
authors of [2] focused on the performance of LIDAR under
various weather phenomena. The authors of [3] studied the
rain effect on cameras. The authors of [4] and [5] described
propagation effect on millimeter-wave (MMW) radar under
various weather conditions. However, up to now there has been
no study which provides readers with a systematic and unified
review about the weather effect on various types of sensors,
used in autonomous vehicles.
Since radar can measure radial distance and velocity of
remote object very precisely, the market for driver assistance
systems based on millimeter-wave radar sensor technology is
gaining momentum. According to [4], the most serious source
for radar signal attenuation is rain. In [5], it is stated that
backscatter also contributes significantly to the impact of
rain on millimeter-wave radar because the droplet sizes are
comparable to the radar wavelength. The attenuation effect
reduces the received power of useful signals and the backscatter
effect increases the interference at the receiver. Therefore, the
combined effect of these two factors should be carefully
studied.
In this paper, we first present a literature review about the
influence of adverse weather conditions on state-of-the- art
sensors such as LIDAR, GPS, camera and radar. Then, we
propose a new model to characterize the rain effect on the
MMW radar, which considers both the rain attenuation and
the backscatter effects. Our simulation results show that the
detection range of the MMW radar can be reduced by up
to 55% under severe heavy rainfall conditions. Moreover, for
targets with different radar cross-section areas, the rain
backscatter effect is significantly different.
Figure 1 Diagram of various sensors on an autonomous vehicle
The rest of the article is organized as follows. Section II
reviews the weather effects on LIDAR, camera and radar.
Sections III presents our mathematical modeling of rain effect
on the MMW radar. Section IV presents simulation results
and provides implementation considerations of MMW radar
according to the simulation results. Finally, Section V
concludes the paper.
II. WEATHER EFFECTS ON SENSORS FOR
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES
This section reviews different sensing technologies for
autonomous vehicles and their respective issues under a
variety of adverse weather conditions (e.g. rain, fog, snow, or
space weather). These considered sensing technologies
include LIDAR, video camera, GPS, and radar.
Note that besides the mentioned sensors, sonar is also
a popular equipment for navigation and ranging on autonomous
vehicles. Sonar is able to operate in adverse weather with little
interference due to its short measurement range of less than
10m [6]. Due to its short detection range and limited usage in
autonomous cars, it has not been considered in the following
discussion.
LIDAR
Since light radar (LIDAR) sensors are able to provide
outstanding angular resolution and highly accurate range
measurements, in recent years they have been proposed as the
essential part of a high performance perception system for
advanced driver assistant functions.
The working principal for LIDAR is to first transmit a pulse
and then measure the time until it receives the bounced or
reflected pulse signal from a target object. The distance
between the LIDAR device and the target is thus equal to half
the round trip time multiplied by the speed of light.
Clemens et al. [1] proposed that the criterion for object
detection at the receiver should be that the voltage of the
reflected pulse is greater than a noise voltage threshold. The
authors of [7] gave formulas about receiving power and signal-
to-noise-ratio (SNR) of LIDAR with an avalanche photodiode
(APD) receiver. They also studied the relationship among peak
return detection, false alarm rate and SNR. From the
formulation of LIDAR in [1], the receiving power is affected
by an extinction coefficient α and a backscattering coefficient
β from different weather conditions. In [2], Rasshofer et al.
presented the mathematical formulas to calculate these
coefficients under rainy, foggy and snowy conditions,
respectively. According to [2] and [7], these coefficients are
determined by the distributions of particle diameters and size,
which are related to rainfall and snowfall rates.
In [7], it was mentioned that fogs produce high extinction
and backscattering coefficients (5 × 10−3 to 1.5 × 10−2 ),
which are higher than those of snowfall (10−3 to 5 × 10−3 )
and rainfall (less than 10−3 ). For rain and snow, their
extinction coefficients show no frequency selectivity. As a
result, for a LIDAR with wavelength of 900nm, fog has the
largest impact on its detection ability. Under rainy conditions,
if the raindrop is very close in distance to the laser emitter,
there will be a high chance for false detection. In other words,
if the laser beam intersects a particle and it generates a “burst
of light” like a small surface, there will be a return of peak,
which is similar to the one from object on road.
Some of the commercial products already have automatic
fog correction. Therefore, raindrops and snowflakes can be
filtered out by the use of pixel oriented evaluation [3]. Pixel
oriented evaluation involves saving sequential measurement
values from each individual spot in each scan, and a separate
counter being started for each spot. Erroneous measurements
can be filtered out by repeatedly examining the reported spot.
However, there is no study on how much accuracy these
techniques could guarantee in adverse weather conditions.
Camera
Vehicle on-board cameras provide drivers with crucial visual
signals and information for safe driving. The information can
help detect pavement markings, road signs or hazards such
as obstacles. These systems provide a good service in more
typical weather conditions, especially in clear daylight.
However, such systems should not degrade in severe weather
and the camera system should continue to provide helpful
information under these conditions, especially as the driver is
under an increased workload. Bad weather reduces the scene
contrast and visibility, and hence this subsection will analyze
the performance of camera based systems in the three most
frequent adverse weather conditions: snow, rain and fog.
Rainy and Snowy Conditions
Most algorithms used in outdoor vision systems assume that
intensities of image pixels are proportional to scene brightness.
However, dynamic weather (rain and snow) introduces sharp
intensity fluctuations in images and videos, which degrade the
qualities of images and videos, and thus violate this basic
assumption [8]. For example, raindrops in the air can create
raindrop pattern on the image, which will decrease the image
intensity and blur the edge of other patterns behind it [3]. Heavy
snow in the air can increase the image intensity and obscure the
edge of the pattern of object in the image or video so that the
object cannot be recognized. Technologies to deal with this
issue can be classified into two main categories: real-time
processing and post-time processing.
In terms of real-time processing, Garg and Nayar [8] showed
that by appropriately selecting camera parameters, one could
reduce (and sometimes remove) the effect of rain, without
appreciably altering the appearance of the scene. This is done
during image acquisition and does not require any post-
processing. The work first did the analysis of visibility of rain
and then presented a method that automatically sets the camera
parameters (exposure time, F-number and focus setting) to
remove/reduce the effect of rain based on the analysis.
Apart from their influence on the image, raindrops and
snowflakes can affect the camera directly. In snowy condition,
cool temperature affects a camera system due to optical and
mechanical disruptions. An un-shielded camera can be easily
damaged by ice. If the on-board camera is a powered rotation
camera such as an auto tracker, the ice formed residual moisture
from rain or sleet can cause the camera to be locked in place and
prevent rotation. If there is moisture around a camera below
freezing point, the frost can cover the camera’s lens and deny the
viewer seeing any activities besides the crystalline patterns of
the snow. These issues can be solved by a self-heating camera,
which can generate heat during its operation to avoid frozen
moisture inside or on its lens. Rainy condition affects the system
due to electrical and optical disruptions. If the system is not
waterproof, it can be damaged by short circuit from raindrops.
Optically, raindrops on the lens can change the focus of camera.
As a result, part of the image affected by raindrops will be out of
focus and blurred. These effects can lead to the failure of image
processing such as pattern recognition.
Foggy Condition
Under foggy condition, moisture such as condensation on a
lens has the similar impact on the image processing as snowy
 
“Weather affects surveillance cameras,” Available:
http://www.securitycameraking.com/securityinfo/weatheraffectssurvei
llance- cameras/
conditions. Furthermore, fog negatively influences perception
and creates potentially dangerous situations as it can reduce the
contrast of the image and increase the difficulty of pattern edge
recognition [1]. In the case of an observed fog scene, the
frequency components are concentrated at zero frequency
whereas in the scene without fog one finds a broadly spread
spectrum. Sharp edges are modeled by different low and high
frequencies, whereas smooth edges are characterized only by low
frequencies.
From [9], the current technologies to remove fog effects are
of two types: fog correction and fog removal. Fog correction is
based on the correction of contrast level, for example, color
correction. In a fog removal process, the fog level over an image
is estimated and removed. The authors of [9] reviewed state-of-
art image enhancement and restoration methods for improving the
quality and visibility level of an image through several aspects:
image acquisition, estimation, enhancement, restoration and
compression. They also compared these approaches through
implementation of the methods while using the same parameter
values for critical analysis.
Global Positioning System (GPS)
The GPS can provide real time location of a vehicle, which
is the core functionality for any navigation system combined
with a digital map. In theory, local weather condition does not
affect the accuracy of GPS positioning as it is designed for all-
weather conditions. The GPS signal frequency around
1575MHZ is chosen because it is a frequency "window" for
signal propagation that is mostly unaffected by the weather [10].
However, vehicle GPS does suffer from some performance
degradation in rainy or snowy days. For example, if a GPS
module is installed inside a car attached on the windscreen, the
wipers running across the windshield will intermittently block
reception and make it difficult for a GPS device to detect a
complete navigation data string. Since GPS receives location
signal from different satellites, it is important for the receiver to
have a clear line of sight of sky. When the wipers are in the
middle between the GPS receiver and sky, the receiver is
blocked and has trouble receiving those bits of string arriving at
the passing of the wiper. Therefore, the GPS may not decode the
received string properly and is likely to give inaccurate
information. On the other hand, if the GPS is mounted outside a
car, the raindrop will affect the receiving frequency of the GPS
antenna and also attenuate the signal.
Although GPS is not affected much by local weather, it can
be influenced by space weather. Irregularities in the ionospheric
layer of the Earth’s atmosphere can at times lead to rapid fading
in received signal power levels due to destructive interference in
multi-path signals. This phenomenon, referred as ionospheric
scintillation, can lead to a receiver being unable to track one or
more visible satellites for short periods of time. Other factors
“Rain, snow, clouds and gps reception,” Available:
http://www.gpsinformation.net/gpsclouds.htm
affecting GPS accuracy include radio interference from other
research satellites and multi-path fading from nearby
environment [10]. One way to improve the GPS accuracy is to
enhance the receiver tracking threshold, especially by means of
external velocity aiding from an inertial measurement unit
(IMU). This has already been used in some luxury cars. Other
techniques include redesigning the receiver antenna and signal
processing procedures.
Radar
Over the last decade, radar based driver assistance and active
safety systems have found wide applications in nearly all vehicle
manufacturers the world. The basic principal for this kind of
radar is range and velocity detection of moving objects.
According to the American and European standards, the
frequency band of the radar for automobiles is around 24 and
explained in Table 1. Parameters 𝑉 (multipath coefficient) and 𝛾
(rain attenuation coefficient) need to be calculated by other
formulas in [4] and 𝜎𝑖 (rain backscatter coefficient) needs to be
calculated by using the formula for Marshall-Palmer distribution
in [13].
The Backscatter Effect
According to formula 4.1 in [14], the detection process also
depends on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR).
Maintaining the SINR above a certain threshold is vital for
reliable detection. From formula 4.20 in [14], the relationship
between the power intensity of the target signal and that of the
backscatter signal is characterized by
𝑆𝑡 8𝜎𝑡
( )= (2)
𝑆𝐵 𝜏𝑐𝜃𝐵𝑊 𝜋𝑅𝑡2 𝜎𝑖
2

77GHz [11] and the radar operating in this band is called

millimeter-wave radar (MMW). Compared to traditional where 𝑆𝑡 and 𝑆𝑏 are power intensities of target and backscatter
microwave radar systems, millimeter-wave radar is able to signals; c is the speed of light and other parameters are explained
provide higher resolution. In microwave systems, transmission in Table 1.
loss is mainly caused by the free-space loss. However, in the
millimeter-wave spectrum, additional loss factors come into Variable Value
play, such as rain, snow and mist in the transmission medium 𝑃𝑡 , Transmission Power 10mW
[4]. 𝐺, Antenna Gain 30dB
According to [4], the most serious source for radar signal 𝑓, Radar Frequency 77GHz
attenuation is rain. In [5], it is stated that backscatter also 𝜏, Pulse Duration 5 × 10−8 s
contributes significantly to the impact by rain on millimeter- 𝜃𝐵𝑊 , Antenna Beamwidth 2 - 4°
wave radar. This is because the droplet sizes are comparable to 𝜎𝑡 , Radar Cross-Section of Sedan: 15.85𝑚2 , Pedestrian: 1𝑚2
the radar wavelength. The attenuation effect reduces the Target
received power of useful signals and the backscatter effect 𝐹𝑁 , Receiver Noise Figure 11dB
increases the interference at the receiver. In the events of snow 𝐵, Receiver Filter Bandwidth 20MHz – 4GHz
and mist, MMW radars are also affected in the form of 𝑇0 , Thermal Temperature 293 Kelvin
attenuation and backscatter. From [12], the mathematical models
Table 1 Simulation parameter values
for attenuation and backscatter of snow and mist conditions are
the same as those of the rain model though mist and snow have
different attenuation and backscatter coefficients and the Receiver Noise
calculation methods are also studied there. In the next section, From [15], the receiver noise for a MMW radar is given by
we will investigate the rain attenuation effect, the backscatter
effect and their combined effect in more detail. 𝑁 = (𝐹𝑁 − 1)𝑘𝑇0 𝐵 (3)

III. RAIN EFFECTS ON MILLIMETER-WAVE where 𝑁 is the receiver thermal noise in watts and other variables
RADAR are explained in Table 1.
As mentioned above, rain effects on MMW radar can be
classified as two types: attenuation and backscatter. The Combined Effect on MMW Radar
Mathematical models of both effects, receiver noise and the If we treat the rain backscatter effect as interference at the
combined effect will be described in the following subsections. receiver, the SINR can be calculated as 𝑆𝐼𝑁𝑅 = 𝑃𝑟 /(𝑃𝑏 + 𝑁),
where 𝑃𝑟 is the signal power at the receiver, 𝑃𝑏 and 𝑁 are the
The Attenuation Effect backscatter signal power and receiver thermal noise,
respectively. Without loss of generality, we assume the areas of
𝑃𝑡 𝐺 2 𝜆2 𝜎𝑡 4
𝑃𝑟 = ∙ 𝑉 ∙ 𝑒𝑥𝑝(−0.2𝛾𝑟) (1) radar receiver and transmitter are the same. Therefore, 𝑃𝑟 /𝑃𝑏
(4𝜋)3 𝑟 4
becomes the same as 𝑆𝑡 /𝑆𝑏 in Equation (2) and 𝑃𝑏 can be
where 𝑟 is the distance between radar and target; 𝑃𝑟 is the signal calculated by using Equation (1) and Equation (2). Obviously,
power at receiver; 𝜆 is the radar wavelength. Other variables are
the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver can be written as
𝑆𝑁𝑅 = 𝑃𝑟 /𝑁.
IV. SIMULATION AND RESULTS
In this section, four general scenarios and implementation
aspects are considered, which are described as follows.
Scenario 1: The radar detection range of a sedan is
calculated versus different rainfall rates (0 - 400mm/hr) with
fixed SINRs (10dB, 13dB and 20dB). Effect of multi-path is also
considered and the target of radar is a sedan.
Scenario 2: The target of radar is changed to a pedestrian and
the rest are the same as Scenario 1.
Scenario 3: Comparison between the rain attenuation and
backscatter effects is performed under different rainfall rates (0
- 400mm/hr) with fixed distance (100m) for detection of a sedan.
Both SNR and SINR versus rainfall rate are plotted.
Scenario 4: The target of the radar is changed to a pedestrian
and the fixed distance is changed to 50m. The rest of the scenario
are the same as Scenario 3.
The parameter values used in our simulations are
summarized in Table 1.
Scenario 1: Radar Detection Range of a Sedan
versus Rainfall Rate
As mentioned above, for reliable target detection, there is a
requirement for the receiver SINR. The SINR for radar detection
is related to the probability of detection and false alarming rate.
A typical radar system will operate with a detection probability
of 0.9 and a probability of false alarm of 10−6 . The required
SINR for millimeter-wave radar was suggested to be 13.2dB in
[16]. Therefore, in our simulation, the minimum required SINR
for the combined effect is set to13 dB with multi-path effect and
10, 13 and 20dB without multi-path effect.
Different detection ranges can be solved by using the SINR
equation with different rainfall rates. Since the maximum
rainfall rate in the world is 401mm/hr according to the record,
the range of rainfall rate is set to 0 – 400mm/hr.
The simulation results are shown in Figure 2a with multi-
path effect and Figure 2b without multi-path effect. From Figure
2a, it can be seen that the multi-path effect (causing the variance
of the detection distance) is less observable with the increase of
the rainfall rate. This is because the high rainfall rate tends to
attenuate the detection distance severely and lead to the
reduction of the variance caused by multi-path. From Figure 2b,
we can observe that the detection range decreases faster with
rainfall rate at a higher SINR requirement. For example, when
SINR = 20dB, the detection range decreases 17% at severe rain
condition (50mm/hr) and 33% at extreme condition (400mm/hr).
However, when SINR = 10dB, the reduction is 9% for the severe

“World’s record rainfall,” Available:
http://www.bom.gov.au/water/designRainfalls/rainfallEvents/worldRec
Rainfall.shtm
condition (50mm/hr) and 20% for the extreme condition
(400mm/hr), respectively. For normal detection requirement
(SINR = 13dB), the drop is around 11% for the severe condition
(50mm/hr) and 22% for the extreme condition (400mm/hr),
respectively. Therefore, we can conclude that severe and
extreme rainfall conditions have a significant impact on the radar
detection range.
Scenario 2: Radar Detection Range of a Pedestrian
versus Rainfall Rate
The difference between this scenario and the above scenario
is the different radar-cross section (RCS) due to the change of
target from a sedan to a pedestrian. The RCS of the target may
be characterized by the following factors: material of target
surface, the size of the target, incident and reflected angles of
radar wave, the polarization of transmitted and received
radiation, etc. From Subsection III-A, it can be seen that the
receiving power of radar is proportional to the target radar cross
section area. Since the radar cross section area of a pedestrian is
less than a sedan (see Table 1), the detection range is expected
to be shorter. This is demonstrated in the simulation results in
this subsection. We plot the simulation results in Figure 3a with
multi-path and Figure 3b without multi-path. From Figure 3a,
the multi-path effect of this pedestrian scenario diminishes faster
than Scenario 1 due to the difference in the RCS. From Figure
3b, it can be seen that the detection range is reduced by 26% at
severe rainy condition (50mm/hr) and 55% at extreme rainy
condition (400mm/hr) when SINR is at 13dB. Compared to
Scenario 1, a target with lower RCS value experiences a faster
decrease in detection range at the same SINR requirement.
Furthermore, from the comparison, rainfall has a more severe
impact on the detection range of target with a small RCS.
Scenario 3: Radar Receiver SNR and SINR of a
Sedan versus Rainfall Rate
In this scenario, the distance between the target and the radar
is fixed and we consider the effect of rainfall rate on the
attenuation and backscatter effects. As mentioned before, the
SNR formulates the case where only rain attenuation effect is
considered. SINR formulates the case where the combined
effects of rain attenuation and backscatter are concerned. The
receiver SNR and SINR are plotted in the same graph versus the
rainfall rate. The distances are set to 50, 100 and 150 m. The
results are shown in Figure 4a without multi-path effect.
From this figure, we can see that the gap between SNR and
SINR increases with rainfall rate. In other words, the rain
backscatter effect becomes severe in heavy rain conditions. For
example, when the rainfall rate is 50mm/hr, the degradation of

“Radar cross-section — wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,” Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar-cross-section
 (a) Radar Detection Range of Sedan versus Rainfall Rate with Multi-path (b) Radar Detection Range of Sedan versus Rainfall Rate without Multi-
Effect path Effect

Figure 2 Radar Detection Range of Sedan versus Rainfall Rate

(a) Radar Detection Range of Pedestrian versus Rainfall Rate with Multi- (b) Radar Detection Range of Pedestrian versus Rainfall Rate with Multi-
path Effect path Effect

Figure 3 Radar Detection Range of Pedestrian versus Rainfall Rate

(a) Radar Receiver SNR and SINR of Sedan versus Rainfall Rate (b) Radar Receiver SNR and SINR of Pedestrian versus Rainfall Rate

Figure 4 Radar Receiver SNR and SINR of Sedan and Pedestrian versus Rainfall Rate

SINR due to attenuation is 1.11dB and 0.78dB due to
backscatter. At a rainfall rate of 100mm/hr, the reduction due to
attenuation increases to 1.55dB and 1.06dB due to backscatter.
At a rainfall rate of 400mm/hr, the backscatter effect will
degrade 2.98dB because of attenuation and 1.64dB due to
backscatter. Therefore, the attenuation effect is always greater
than backscatter effect on a sedan. Also, for different
measurement distances at the same rainfall rate, the gap between
SNR and SINR increases with the decrease of distance. This is
due to the fact that backscatter from shorter distance experiences
less attenuation and produces stronger interference when the
target distance is also shorter. Overall, from Figure 4a, we can
conclude that rainfall can influence radar detection significantly
especially at heavy and extreme conditions.
Scenario 4 Radar Receiver SNR and SINR of
Pedestrian versus Rainfall Rate
This scenario is similar to Scenario 3 except that the target
is changed from a sedan to a pedestrian. As a result, the radar
cross-section area of the target is also changed. The distance is
set to 50m since the radar cross section area of pedestrian is
smaller than vehicle’s. The results are shown in Figure 4b. The
results are similar to those of Scenario 3 except that the rain
backscatter effect is much larger than the rain attenuation effect.
For example, when the rainfall rate is 100 mm/hr, the SINR
degradation due to the rainfall attenuation is 0.56dB and 2.82dB
due to backscatter. Therefore, the backscatter effect dominates
the decrease of SINR. This is because the radar cross-section
area of a pedestrian is much smaller than a sedan.
Implementation Aspects of Millimeter-wave Radar
From the literature review and simulation results, we
conclude that there are three implementation considerations for
millimeter-wave radar of autonomous vehicle.
The first aspect is the transmission power of the radar, which
is dependent on the function and detection range of radar. For
example, for a forward looking long range radar, its transmission
power is higher than the short range rear parking aid radar. High
transmission power not only provides long detection range in
good weather, but also provides high SINR, especially in
adverse weather conditions. However, using a radar constantly
on high power transmission mode is not energy efficient and
adaptive transmission power should be indicated based on the
function range and weather conditions. For instance, if the rainy
condition is detected by the car (this technology is already
mature for the automatic windscreen swift), the system should
also increase the transmission power for the radar to reach the
required SINR.
The second aspect is the bandwidth for the radar. As high
bandwidth provides high resolution for a radar, the radar has the
ability to distinguish objects like human and vehicle and also
give more accurate estimations for the target distance and speed.
Nonetheless, from Equation (3), high bandwidth also causes
noise issues for the radar receiver. Therefore, there is a trade-off
in radar bandwidth and it is important to find the optimal
bandwidth for the radar receiver based on the function
requirements. If the vehicle is also equipped with LIDAR which
provides high resolution speed and distance measurement, then
a low bandwidth radar will be a better choice to reduce the noise
at the receiver.
The third aspect is the radar beamwidth. Obviously, a wider
beamwidth and a larger number of beams could help a radar
detect more objects around vehicle. But it will also consume
more power and lead to greater rain backscatter interference
from Equation (2). As a result, it is also crucial to find the
optimal beamwidth for the radar based on the function
requirements.
V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this paper provides a literature review about
the influence of adverse weather conditions on state-of-the-art
sensors such as LIDAR, GPS, camera, and radar. Furthermore,
we proposed a new model to characterize the rain effect on the
millimeter-wave radar, which considers both the attenuation and
backscatter effect. The simulation results show that the detection
range of a millimeter-wave radar can be reduced by up to 55%
under severe rainfall conditions. Moreover, for a bigger target
with a larger radar cross section areas, the backscatter effect
plays a more significant role causing additional performance
degradation.
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Shizhe Zang received the B.S. (University Medal, first class
Hons.) in electrical engineering (telecommunication) from
University of Sydney, Australia. He received summer
scholarship from School of Medicine, University of Sydney in
2014 and published a literature review about telehealth
reimbursement in Australia in Internal Medicine Journal. He
was a summer scholar at NICTA in 2015 and in data 61, CSIRO
in 2016. He is currently a PhD candidate at University of
Sydney. His current research focuses on millimeter wave
communication in heterogeneous network.
Ming Ding (M’12) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees (with first
class Hons.) in electronics engineering from Shanghai Jiao
Tong University (SJTU), Shanghai, China, and the Doctor of
Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in signal and information processing
from SJTU, in 2004, 2007, and 2011, respectively. He has
authored more than 30 papers in IEEE journals and
conferences, all in recognized venues, and about 20 3GPP
standardization contributions, as well as a Springer book
Multipoint Cooperative Communication Systems: Theory and
Applications. Also, as the first inventor, he holds 15 CN, 7 JP, 3
US, 2 KR patents and co-authored another 100+ patent
applications on 4G/5G technologies. He is currently a senior
research scientist in network measurements and modelling team
in data61, CSIRO. His research interests include B3G, 4G, and
5G wireless communication networks, synchronization, MIMO
technology, cooperative communications, heterogeneous
networks, device-to-device communications, and modelling of
wireless communication systems.
David Smith received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering
from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 1997, and
the M.E. (research) and Ph.D. degrees in telecommunications
engineering from the University of Technology Sydney, in 2001
and 2004, respectively. He is a Senior Researcher Scientist with
Data61, CSIRO (previously in NICTA) and an Adjunct Fellow
with Australian National University (ANU). He was with NICTA
since 2004, and in Data61 since 2016. He has been with ANU
since 2004. He He has published over 100 technical refereed
papers and made various contributions to IEEE standardization
activity. His research interests are in wireless body area
networks, game theory for distributed networks, mesh networks,
5G networks, disaster tolerant networks, radio propagation,
MIMO wireless systems, space-time coding, antenna design, and
also in distributed optimization for smart grid.
Paul Tyler is currently a Senior Research Engineer with
Data61’s Netowrk Research Group. Paul has been with Data61
(and formally NICTA) since 2004 bringing ICT research to the
transport and infrastructure domain. For the past 4 years, Paul
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has been providing project management and technical
knowledge to Transport for NSW to deploy the Cooperative
Intelligent Transport Initiative (CITI), a connected vehicles trial
in the Illawarra region. Previous to this he has worked on
projects such as traffic state estimations from loop detectors at
signalised roundabouts, investigations into adaptive traffic
control systems and video tracking of vehicles. Previous to
Data61, Paul worked at the Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation (ANSTO) fullfilling a scientific
computing and research engineering role with a particle
accelerator. Paul has considerable experience in systems
engineering, computer systems administration and software
development as well as performing project management roles.
Paul has a PhD in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science
both from the University of Sydney.
Thierry Rakotoarivelo completed his PhD in cotutelle with
University of New South Wales (UNSW, Australia) and the
Institut National Polytechnique of Toulouse (INPT, France). He
worked on peer-to-peer mechanisms to discover and utilise
Quality-of-Service enhanced alternate paths on the Internet. His
thesis received the “Prix Léopold Escande” award from INPT.
He was a Senior Researcher with NICTA (National ICT
Australia). I worked on protocols and frameworks for large
scale distributed testbeds (i.e. design, provisioning,
control/orchestration, and instrumentation/measurement). He
also worked on tools to enable reproducible experiments on
these testbeds. Currently, he is a Senior Research Scientist with
the Networks Group at Data61, CSIRO.
Mohamed Ali Kaafar is the Group Leader of the Networks
Group and a Senior Principal Researcher at Data61. His main
research interests are in the area of data Privacy, Networks
Security and Performance modelling. He holds the position of
visiting professor of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). He
was previously a research leader and a principal researcher at
the Mobile Networks Systems group at NICTA and a researcher
at the Privatics team at INRIA in France. Prof. Kaafar obtained
a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Nice Sophia
Antipolice at Inria France. He published over 200 scientific
peer-reviewed papers with several repetitive publications in the
prestigious ACM SIGCOMM and IEEE INFOCOM. Prof.
Kaafar is also a member of the editorial board of the Privacy
Enhancing Technologies Symposium and Journal (PETS and
PoPETS). In 2015, he has been appointed as the editor of the
IEEE Internet Computing on Small Wearables and currently
serves as the associate editor of the ACM Transactions on
Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computing Systems.
He is also member of several technical committees including the
ACM International Conference on emerging Networking
Experiments and Technologies (CoNEXT), ACM Internet
Measurement Conference (IMC) and WWW. He is the general
Chair of Passive Active Measurement 2017.