Radar 2012

Time

Tutorial

Title and synopsis

Tutor

Dr Mark Davies

Dr Mark E Davis has over 40 years experience in radar technology and systems development. He has held senior management positions in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Air Force Research Laboratory, and General Electric Aerospace. At DARPA, he was the program manager on both the foliage penetration (FOPEN) radar advanced development program and the GeoSAR foliage penetration mapping radar. Dr Davis wrote the text ”Foliage Penetration Radar – Detection and Characterization of Objects Under Trees”, published by Scitech Raleigh NC in March 2011.

His education includes a PhD in Physics from The Ohio State University, and Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University. He is a Fellow of both the IEEE and Military Sensing Symposia, and a member of the Board of Governors and the Radar Systems Panel of the IEEE Aerospace Electronics Systems Society.

Hugh Griffiths

Hugh Griffiths holds the THALES/Royal Academy of Engineering Chair of RF Sensors at University College London. Previously he served as Principal of the Defence College of Management and Technology, Shrivenham. His research interests include radar and sonar sensor systems and signal processing (particularly bistatic and multistatic radar, and radar imaging) as well as antennas and antenna measurement techniques.

He is a Vice-President of the IEEE AESS Board of Governors and serves as Editor-in-Chief of IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation, and he was Chair of the IEE International Radar Conference RADAR 2002. In 1997 he was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Heiner Kuschel

Heiner Kuschel was born in Cologne in Germany in 1955. In 1980, he received the Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Technische Hochschule Aachen with emphasis on HF-techniques. Since 1981 he works as a Scientist with the FHP, Forschungsinstitut für Hochfrequenzphysik (Research Institute for High Frequency Physics), since 1999 FHR, Research Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques of FGAN (Forschungsgesellschaft für angewandte Naturwissenschaften e.V.) in Werthhoven.

The primary subjects of his work are: VHF-Radar, propagation prediction modelling, RCS, and radar systems. This also includes consultancy to the German ministry of defence on industry projects. He has been managing the experimental low frequency radar projects LARA and LARISSA of FGAN and is now leading the passive covert radar team of Fraunhofer FHR. 

He is responsible for the research project ‘semi-active radar for low level coverage’ and the mobile experimental radar projects CORA, DELIA and PETRA. He has been working in NATO research study groups of DRG panel X since 1984 and has been leading several SET technical teams. He is currently the team leader of  the NATO task group SET152 on deployable multi-band passive/active radar for air defence.

Marc Lesturgie

Marc Lesturgie obtained the engineering degree in 1985 from ENSAE in France (Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace), and a master's degree in electronic and microwave from University of Toulouse in 1986. In 2005 he obtained a Research Directorship Habilitation thesis from the University of Paris VI. He joined the French Aerospace Lab (ONERA) in 1987 and worked in a wide range of low frequency and new radar concepts, covering bistatic, multistatic and distributed radars. From 1996 to 2000 he is the head of the 'new radar concepts' team in ONERA. In 2006, Marc Lesturgie is appointed as Director of SONDRA (Supelec-ONERA-NUS-DSTA Research Alliance) - a joint laboratory between France and Singapore. In 2007 he is the head of the electromagnetics department in Supelec.

In 2008, still Director of the SONDRA laboratory, Marc Lesturgie is also Deputy Director at the Electromagnetics and Radar Department of ONERA. Since 2005, he has been also an Adjunct Principle Research Scientist with the Temasek Laboratories, at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Chairman of the SEE/Committee 23 (radio-location and navigation) between 2000 and 2006, he has organised several International conferences, acted as the Technical Chairman of the International Conference on Radar Systems in 2004 (Toulouse) and 2009(Bordeaux). Marc Lesturgie is senior member of the IEEE, Fellow and Emeritus member of SEE and lectures regularly on radar topics in French and overseas Universities.

Dr William Melvin

Dr William Melvin is Director of the Sensors and Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and an Adjunct Professor in Georgia Tech’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. His research interests include all aspects of RF and acoustic sensor development, with a special emphasis on adaptive signal processing.  He has authored over 160 publications in his areas of research interest and holds three US patents on adaptive sensor technology.

Among his distinctions, Dr. Melvin was chosen as an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to adaptive radar technology. He also serves on several boards through the National Research Council of the US National Academies and is a member of the IEEE Radar Systems Panel.

Dr. Melvin received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University, as well as the MSEE and BSEE degrees (with high honors) from this same institution, respectively.

Dr Andy Stove

Dr Andy Stove received a BA degree in Engineering Science in 1977 and a DPhil degree in 1981 for work on surface acoustic wave devices, both degrees being received from Oxford University. He then joined Philips Research Laboratories, working principally on the application of FMCW techniques to naval navigation radars and low-level air defence radars, on guided ammunition and on automotive radar. This work included the research that led to the development of the PILOT FMCW navigation radar.

After a short period working on ways to enable computers to understand their users' mental states, he joined Racal Radar Defence Systems, now Thales Defence and Mission Systems Domain, in 1996. Since then he has worked on the system design and proving of the Searchwater 2000 family of Maritime Surveillance and AEW radars. He has also worked on target classification and discrimination for microwave and VHF radars and has continued to work on FMCW techniques, including their application to low cost phased array radars and further studies of their detectability. He has also worked on calibration techniques and systems concepts for advanced, low cost, phased array radars, on techniques for modelling the operation and performance of radar systems and on their use in multi-function and multi-static systems. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a fellow of the IET and industry co-chair of the Technical Group of the UK's Radar Tower of Excellence .

Peter Tait

Peter Tait joined the Marconi Research Laboratories in 1974 after graduating in Physics from Imperial College, London University with first class honours. He initially worked in radar receiver research. From 1986 he led the company core radar target recognition research programme and the group developing the technology for high resolution modes for company radars including Captor for the Typhoon fighter aircraft. He then joined the Captor team as technical adviser to the Euroradar Board of Directors and as Chairman of the Chief Engineers’ meeting.

In 2000 he joined the predecessor company of BAE Systems as head of non co-operative target recognition. In 2005 he wrote the book 'Introduction to Radar Target Recognition' for The IET.

He has been a member of NATO target recognition working groups and is a reviewer for IET journals. He has filed eighteen UK and worldwide patents, has presented papers at several conferences and is a lecturer for the NATO educational programme. He won BAE Systems’ Chairman’s Silver innovation award for detecting plastic land mines and also won a company world class technology award for his target recognition work.

Dr Robert Tough

After completing his university studies Dr Robert Tough worked in the Theoretical Physics Section and, from October 1985 onwards, in the Maritime Radar Section at RSRE/DERA, Malvern. His theoretical research interests included the macro and microscopic description of the properties of liquid crystals and suspensions, stochastic processes and mathematical methods. Subsequently Dr. Tough’s research interests have focused on the study of open-ocean and littoral sea clutter, multi-path effects, the properties and applications of random waveforms, the theory of synthetic and inverse synthetic aperture radar methods, SAR image enhancement techniques, including interferometry and polarimetry, the remote sensing of the sea surface and automatic target recognition and identification (ATRI).

He has contributed significantly to the formulation and extension of the K distribution model of non-Gaussian statistics, including its representation as a diffusive process described by coupled stochastic differential equations and through the development of a path-integral formulation of its spatial statistics, and the computation of low grazing-angle scattering of electromagnetic radiation by imperfectly conducting rough surfaces in both mono-static and bi-static geometries. He achieved an Individual Merit promotion within the then Scientific Civil Service in recognition of the quality of his work. He left DERA to set up TW Research with Dr. K.D. Ward in September 1995. Since then he has carried out contract research on ocean imaging, small target detection, rough surface scattering, detection theory and sea clutter and radar performance modelling for clients in the UK and USA.

An account of some of Dr. Tough’s work on the more practical aspects of radar performance modelling can be found in a book, 'Sea Clutter: Scattering, the K Distribution and Radar Performance', published by The IET, which he co-authored with his long-time collaborators Keith Ward and Simon Watts.

Prof Simon Watts

Simon Watts is currently deputy Scientific Director of Thales UK, Defence Mission Systems, and is also a Visiting Professor in the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London.

He is author and co-author of over 45 journal and conference papers, a book on sea clutter and several patents. He was chairman of the international radar conference RADAR-97. He was appointed MBE in 1996 for services to the UK defence industry and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the IET and Fellow of the IEEE.