Tutorials

Monday, 6th October

Morning session: 8:30-12:30

Afternoon session: 13:45-17:45

Adaptive beamforming is driving the adoption of larger, all-digital electronically steerable arrays (ESAs/phased arrays). However, the underlying concepts and mathematics can often feel abstract and challenging to grasp. In this hands-on workshop, we will bridge that gap by building and implementing our own multi-channel adaptive beamformers. Participants will witness it in action and adaptively manage jammers and interferers. We will methodically cover the fundamentals of adaptive beamforming, exploring various implementations step-by-step. Participants will then design their own algorithms to analyze real data collected from a digital beamformer available in the room. Each topic will include a concise lecture explaining the relevant theory and mathematics, followed by practical, hands-on activities using real-world data.

To facilitate participation, all necessary data and Python scripts will be provided during the tutorial, allowing attendees to perform the labs directly on their laptops. This interactive approach ensures participants gain a deeper, intuitive understanding of adaptive beamforming through both theory and practice.

Dr. Mike Picciolo is Senior Radar and EW Architect at Anduril Industries, in the Electronic Warfare organization. Previously, he was Director of Mission Engineering in the Engineering, Integration and Logistics Division at SAIC. Previously he served as Chief Technology Officer, NSS Division, at ENSCO.  Prior, he was the Associate Chief Technologist for Dynetics and Chief Engineer of the Advanced Missions Solutions Group in Chantilly, VA. He has in-depth expertise in Radar, ISR systems, Space Time Adaptive Processing and conducts research in advanced technology development programs. Has deep domain expertise in SAR/GMTI radar, communications theory, waveform diversity, wireless communications, hyperspectral imagery, IMINT, SIGINT, and MASINT intelligence disciplines. He is a member of the IEEE Radar Systems Panel, received the 2007 IEEE Fred Nathanson Radar Engineer of the Year Award, the 2018 IEEE AESS Outstanding Organizational Leadership Award, and founded the IEEE Radar Summer School series.

Jon Kraft joined Analog Devices in 2007, after spending 9 years at Motorola/ON Semiconductor. He is now a senior principal applications engineer with a focus in software-defined radio and phased array radar. He posts examples of these concepts, using simple hardware and software, at www.youtube.com/@jonkraft. He is also the architect, and perpetual explorer, of the CN0566 Software Defined Phased Array Radar project, commonly called the “Phaser.” He received a B.S.E.E. from Rose-Hulman, a M.S.E.E. from Arizona State University, and has 10 patents issued.

Autonomous driving is one of the megatrends in the automotive industry, and a majority of car manufacturers are already introducing various levels of autonomy into commercially available vehicles. The main task of the sensing suite in autonomous vehicles is to provide the most reliable and dense information on the vehicular surroundings. Specifically, it is necessary to acquire information on drivable areas on the road and to port all objects above the road level as obstacles to be avoided. Thus, the sensors need to detect, localize, and classify a variety of typical objects, such as vehicles, pedestrians, poles, and guardrails.

Comprehensive and accurate information on vehicle surroundings cannot be achieved by any single practical sensor. Therefore, all autonomous vehicles are typically equipped with multiple sensors of multiple modalities: radars, cameras, and lidars. Lidars are expensive, and cameras are sensitive to illumination and weather conditions. They have to be mounted behind an optically transparent surface and do not provide direct range and velocity measurements.

Radars are robust to adverse weather conditions, are insensitive to lighting variations, provide long and accurate range measurements, and can be packaged behind the optically nontransparent fascia. The uniqueness of automotive radar scenarios mandates the formulation and derivation of new signal-processing approaches beyond classical military radar concepts. The reformulation of vehicular radar tasks, along with new performance requirements, provides an opportunity to develop innovative signal processing methods.

This Tutorial will first describe active safety and autonomous driving features and associated sensing challenges. Next, it will overview technology trends, state the advantages of available sensing modalities, and describe automotive radar performance requirements. It will discuss propagation phenomena experienced by typical automotive radar and radar concepts that can address them. It will compare radar and LiDAR signal processing chains and emphasize their similarity, differences, and associated processing challenges.

Next, this Tutorial will focus on the radar processing chain: range, Doppler measurement estimation, beamforming, detection, range and angle-of-arrival migration, tracking, and clustering. Discussing modern automotive radars, the Tutorial will describe the MIMO radar approach.

Finally, the automotive radar applications and advanced topics, such as interference mitigation and sensor fusion, will be discussed.

Dr. Igal Bilik received B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel, in 1997, 2003, and 2006, respectively. During 2006–2008, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University, Durham, NC. During 2008-2011, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. During 2011-2019, he was a Staff Researcher at GM Advanced Technical Center, Israel, leading automotive radar technology development. Between 2019 and 2020, he led the Smart Sensing and Vision Group at GM R&D, responsible for developing state-of-the-art automotive radar, lidar, and computer vision technologies. Since Oct. 2020, Dr. Bilik has been an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Since 2020, he has been a member of the IEEE AESS Radar Systems Panel Committee and, since 2021, a chair of the Civilian Radar Committee. Since 2020, Dr. Bilik has been an Acting Officer of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Chapter in Israel and chairs the Autonomous and Connected Transportation Committee at the Israeli Center for Smart Mobility Research. He has been serving as an Associate Editor (AE) for the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems since 2020 and is currently a Senior Editor (SE) for these transactions. He is an AE of the IEEE Sensors and IEEE Transactions on Radar Systems and a Member of the Transactions on Radar Systems Editorial Committee since 2022. Dr. Bilik has more than 240 patent inventions, authored more than 100 peer-reviewed academic publications, received the Best Student Paper Awards at IEEE Radar Conference 2005 and IEEE Radar Conference 2006, Student Best Paper Award in the 2006 IEEE 24th Convention of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Israel, the GM Product Excellence Recognition in 2017, IEEE AESS Industrial Innovation Award 2024, and he was named the IEEE AESS Distinguished Lecturer 2025-2027. Dr. Bilik’s current research interests are statistical radar signal processing, automotive radar, unmanned vehicle-borne aerial radar, cognitive radar, radar target detection and parameter estimation theory, radar target classification and tracking, and machine learning-based radar processing.

Clutter and the need to detect targets in clutter is a significant part of radar design.  The development of methods to model clutter and CFAR detection schemes for targets in clutter are still at the forefront of radar research, as evidenced by the numbers of papers on these topics in the radar journals and at the radar conferences.  Models of clutter are only of value if they can be used in practice for the development of real radar systems. 

The tutorial will help attendees to understand the impact of clutter on radar design and performance, and how to use clutter models to develop better designs. This insight is relevant not only to radar systems engineers but also to those responsible for specifying and procuring new radar systems for operational use. 

Much of the tutorial will be based on sea clutter modelling but the general concepts that will be introduced have broader application to all clutter types.

Prof. Simon Watts was a deputy Scientific Director and Technical Fellow in Thales UK until 2013 and is a Visiting Professor in the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London. He received an MA from the University of Oxford in 1971, an MSc from the University of Birmingham in 1972, a PhD from the CNAA in 1987 and a DSc from the University of Birmingham in 2013. He joined Thales (then EMI Electronics) in 1967 and worked on a wide range of radar and EW projects, with a particular research interest in airborne maritime radar and sea clutter. He is author and co-author of over 80 journal and conference papers, two books on sea clutter, various book chapters on clutter and several patents. He has also published two books on the history of airborne maritime surveillance radar. He received the IEEE AES Warren White Award in 2020. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by HM the Queen in 1996 for services to the UK defence industry and holds Fellowships of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IET, the IMA and the IEEE.

Dr. Luke Rosenberg received a Bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering, a Master’s degree in signal and information processing, and a Ph.D. from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is currently an adjunct Associate Professor with the University of Adelaide and a Senior Research Engineer at Advanced Systems & Technologies, Lockheed Martin Australia. Prior to this, he worked at the Defence Science and Technology Group Australia as a research specialist in maritime radar, and in 2014, he spent 12 months with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) working on algorithms for focusing moving scatterers in synthetic aperture radar imagery. Dr. Rosenberg has received a number of best paper awards, the prestigious Defence Science and Technology Achievement Award for Science and Engineering Excellence in 2016 and the IEEE AESS Fred Nathanson award in 2018 for ‘Fundamental Experimental and Theoretical Work in Characterizing Radar Sea Clutter’. He is the vice president for publications on the AESS board of governors, a distinguished lecturer for the AESS, senior editor for the Transactions of Aerospace and Electronic Systems, and past chair of the IEEE South Australian Section. He has over 190 publications including a recent book: Radar Sea Clutter: Modelling and Detection. He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to maritime radars.

Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) is a well-known technique to obtain high-resolution radar images of non-cooperative targets. ISAR images have been largely used to classify and recognise targets and ISAR technology is nowadays employed and integrated in modern radar systems.

Nevertheless, despite decades of research and development work in ISAR imaging, two-dimensional (2D) ISAR images present some intrinsic drawbacks that limit the effectiveness of their use for target classification and recognition. Some of these limitations come from the unpredictability and uncontrollability of the image projection, which transforms three-dimensional (3D) targets in 2D images. One very effective way of overcoming this problem is to form 3D ISAR images instead of 2D ones.

This tutorial will present a unique walkthrough 3D ISAR imaging, including concepts, algorithms, systems and real data examples, which will provide the attendants the necessary tools for a full understanding of this new technology.

Prof. Marco Martorella received his Laurea degree (Bachelor+Masters) in Telecommunication Engineering in 1999 (cum laude) and his PhD in Remote Sensing in 2003, both at the University of Pisa. He is now Professor at the School of Engineering of the University of Birmingham, where is Head of the Microwave Integrated Systems Laboratory (MISL), Vice-Director at the Radar and Surveillance Systems (RaSS) National Laboratory in Pisa and Chair of the NATO Sensors and Electronics Technology (SET) Panel. He is author of about 300 international journal and conference papers, 3 books and 20 book chapters. He has presented several tutorials at international radar conferences, has lectured at NATO Lecture Series and organised international journal special issues on radar imaging topics. He has chaired several NATO research activities, including the SET-293 RTG on “RF Sensing for Space Situational Awareness” and the SET-250 RTG on “Multi-dimensional Radar Imaging”, one Exploratory Team and three Specialist Meetings on imaging- and space-related themes. He has been recipient of the 2008 Italy-Australia Award for young researchers, the 2010 Best Reviewer for the IEEE GRSL, the IEEE 2013 Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award, the 2016 Outstanding Information Research Foundation Book publication award for the book Radar Imaging for Maritime Observation, four NATO SET Panel Excellence Awards (2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023) and two NATO STO Excellence Award (2022. 2024). He is a co-founder of ECHOES, a radar systems-related spin-off company. His research interests are mainly in the field of radar, with specific focus on radar imaging, multidimensional radar, passive radar and space situational awareness. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Dr. Elisa Giusti obtained the specialist degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2006 (cum Laude) and obtained the title of PhD in Remote Sensing at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa in 2010. She was a Research Fellow at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa until 2014 and subsequently she worked as a researcher at the National Interuniversity Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT), and in particular at the National Radar Laboratory and Surveillance Systems (RaSS), where she still works today and where she holds the role of senior researcher (Head of Research Area). She participated in numerous international research projects, funded by Italian ministries (Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of University and Research) and European organizations (EDA, ESA, EC), as researcher and as technical and scientific manager. Many of the projects carried out have seen the validation of technological demonstrators through field trials. She is member of the IEEE and Associate Editor of the IEEE TCI journal. She is author of 107 papers published in international journals and conference proceedings, 1 book and 7 book chapters. She received international awards including the Fall 2021 NATO Sensors and Electronics Technology (SET) Panel Early Career Award (SPECA) and the 2016 Outstanding Information Research Foundation Book publication award for the book Radar Imaging for Maritime Observation. In 2015, she co-founded ECHOES, a radar systems-related spin-off company. Her research interests are mainly in the field of radar systems and radar data processing algorithms. She is senior member of the IEEE.

The micro-Doppler analysis is the study of the time-varying Doppler frequencies from multiple moving scattering centres of targets. Recently, the potential of micro-Doppler signature analysis has been showcased in different areas of radar signal processing, such as improved target detection, characterization and tracking, in a variety of applications including condition monitoring, urban and airspace surveillance, healthcare, automotive, and manufacturing. Combined with advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, micro-Doppler analysis is a great tool to perform automatic target recognition.

This tutorial is broadly divided into 2 parts. In the 1st part, the fundamentals of the phenomenology of micro-Doppler signatures and related signal processing will be introduced with reference to the canonical cases of rigid bodies, then extended to non-rigid bodies. In the 2nd part, different applications of micro-Doppler signature analysis will be discussed with reference to a common classification framework, either using more conventional extracted features or neural networks. These advanced applications will include micro-Doppler for UAVs classification, micro-Doppler-based ballistic threats discrimination, micro-Doppler in Industry 4.0 and AgriTech, micro-Doppler from SAR , and human activities classification targeting continuous actions in a sequence. An overview of the main techniques and of some of the open datasets available will also be provided.

Prof. Carmine Clemente is a Professor at the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. He obtained his PhD in Signal Processing from the University of Strathclyde in 2012. He received the Laurea cum laude (BSc) and Laurea Specialistica cum laude (MSc) degrees in Telecommunications Engineering from Universita’ degli Studi del Sannio, Benevento, Italy, in 2006 and 2009, respectively. Dr Clemente research interests lie on advanced radar signal processing algorithms, MIMO radars, passive radar systems and micro-Doppler analysis, extraction and classification. He published over 160 papers in journals and proceedings and he was co-recipient of the best student paper competition at the IEEE Radar conference 2015, and best paper at the Sensor Signal Processing for Defence Conference 2017.

Dr. Francesco Fioranelli is an Associate Professor at TU Delft, the Netherlands, in the MS3 (Microwave Sensing Signals and Systems) research group. Between 2016 and 2019 he was a Lecturer at the School of Engineering, University of Glasgow. He received his Laurea cum laude (BEng) and Laurea Specialistica cum laude (MEng) degrees in telecommunication engineering from the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy, in 2007 and 2010, respectively. He then obtained his PhD in through-wall radar imaging from Durham University, UK, in February 2014, and was a Research Associate on multistatic radar at University College London with Prof Hugh Griffiths from 2014 to March 2016. Dr Fioranelli research interests are in multistatic and distributed radar sensing, and in the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to the analysis of radar data for classification and situational awareness. He published over 190 academic papers and co-edited two books for the IET on micro-Doppler applications and on radar countermeasures for UAVs (the latter with Dr Clemente). He received five best paper awards and the IEEE AESS Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award in 2024.

With the increasing demand for high-resolution sensing in applications such as automotive radar, healthcare monitoring, and security systems, mmWave MIMO radar has emerged as a key technology for achieving enhanced spatial resolution and high range discrimination. The integration of MIMO techniques with advanced signal processing enables improved detection, tracking, and classification of objects in complex environments.

This tutorial is structured to provide participants with both the theoretical foundation and hands-on skills required to work with mmWave radar systems. It builds on the IEEE SPS Short Course Radar Signal Processing Mastery and incorporates real-time demonstrations with radar sensors from Texas Instruments and Infineon. The tutorial is designed to cater to both newcomers and experienced professionals looking to enhance their expertise in radar signal processing. The tutorial is covering following topics:

1. Overview of radar systems, including pulsed radar, pulse Doppler radar, and continuous wave radar (CW) together with key radar parameters, such as PRF, Doppler shift, range ambiguity, and clutter. Pulse compression and waveform types (LFM, phase-coded, FMCW, PMCW) together with radar waveform optimization for MIMO radars using convex and non-convex methods.
2. Advanced Radar Systems: Phased array radar and MIMO radar fundamentals. Beamforming techniques for MIMO radar systems.
3. Practical demonstrations using Texas Instruments and Infineon radar demo boards, showcasing real-time processing and optimization in MIMO radars. Real-Time Radar Data Processing for radar data acquisition, I&Q demodulation, phase estimation, and filtering. Examples include real-time analysis of radar signals for micro-Doppler observation and human vital signs estimation.

Dr. Mohammad Alaee-Kerahroodi received his Ph.D. in telecommunication engineering from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Iran, in 2017. In 2016, he was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. After earning his Ph.D., he joined the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg as a Research Associate. He is currently a Research Scientist at SnT, where he leads prototyping and laboratory activities within the Signal Processing Applications in Radar and Communications (SPARC) Research Group. Dr. Alaee-Kerahroodi has over 12 years of hands-on experience working with various radar systems, including automotive radar, ground and air surveillance, weather, passive, and marine radar systems. His research interests focus on radar waveform design, array signal processing, and 4D-imaging millimeter-wave MIMO radar sensors. In 2022, he published Signal Design for Modern Radar Systems with Artech House, exploring nonconvex optimization techniques for radar signal design. He is also the creator of RadarMIMO.com, a platform that shares hands-on radar code implementations, and promotes reproducible research in radar signal processing.

This tutorial focuses on passive radar and illustrates the amazing solutions that can be adopted to increase their reliability and hence widen the range of applications. The tutorial starts by presenting an overview of fundamental methods to motivate and explain the architecture and design of existing passive radar systems. A typical signal processing scheme is first introduced and effective solutions are illustrated for the signal processing techniques to be implemented at each stage.

Ground based passive radar systems are investigated, including examples from demonstrators and operational systems. Hence, advanced methods are presented to enhance the performance of the passive radar sensor by exploiting polarization /frequency /spatial diversity, long integration times or extreme geometries. Then the discussion moves to passive radar onboard moving platforms, which enables SAR and GMTI modes. The principle of operation, the signal models, and the signal processing techniques are illustrated. Target imaging with passive ISAR is also considered tackling required techniques and main challenges.

In addition to the theoretical aspects, the tutorial provides the attendees with an insight into the real‐world applications of passive radar, moving from air traffic control up to indoor surveillance using different illuminators. Walking through several experimental results gives the chance to understand the current limitations and future perspectives of passive radar sensing.

Dr. Diego Cristallini is Head of the Passive Radar Group at Fraunhofer FHR. He graduated cum laude in Telecommunication Engineering in May 2006 and received the Ph.D. degree in Radar Remote Sensing in April 2010 both from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. From December 2009 to February 2015 he has been with the Array-based Radar Imaging Department of the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR in Wachtberg, Germany. Since March 2015, Diego is leading the Team on Passive Covert Radar in the Passive Radar and Anti-Jamming Techniques Department of Fraunhofer FHR, Germany. From March to June 2020, he has been visiting scientist at Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group in Edinburgh, South Australia. Dr. Cristallini serves as voluntary Reviewer for a number of international technical journals, and he is active in the scientific community serving as TPC for several international conferences related to radar. He is also a regular lecturer at the Fraunhofer International Summer School on Radar and SAR. Dr. Cristallini was co-chair of the NATO-SET 242 group on “PCL on moving platforms” and he was Director of the NATO LS-299 “Passive Radar Technology”. Dr. Cristallini received the Best Paper Award at EUSAR 2014, co-authored the Best Poster Award at EUSAR 2018, and he was co-recipient of the 2018 Premium Award for Best Paper in IET Radar, Sonar and Navigation. In 2023, he edited the book “Passive Radar on Moving Platforms”, published by IET SciTech. Dr. Cristallini is the organiser of the 2025 Multistatics and Passive Radar Focus Days, the bi-annual event organised by Fraunhofer FHR gathering the passive radar community.

Prof. Fabiola Colone is a Full Professor at the Dept. of Information, Electronics and Telecommunication of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, where she currently holds the role of Chair of the degree programs in Telecommunication Engineering. She received the degree in Telecommunications Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Remote Sensing from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. She joined the DIET Dept. of Sapienza University of Rome as a Research Associate in January 2006. From December 2006 to June 2007, she was a Visiting Scientist at the Electronic and Electrical Engineering Dept. of the University College London, London, UK.
The majority of Dr. Colone’s research activity is devoted to radar systems and signal processing. She has been leading research projects and activities funded by the European Commission, the European Defence Agency, the Italian Space Agency, the Italian Ministry of Research, and many radar/ICT companies. Her research has been reported in over 180 publications in international technical journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings. Dr. Colone is co-editor of the book “Radar Countermeasures for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”, IET Publisher. She has been co-recipient of the 2018 Premium Award for Best Paper in IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation.
From 2017 she is member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic System Society (AESS) in which she has served as Vice-President for Member Services, and Editor in Chief for the IEEE AESS QEB Newsletters. She is IEEE Senior Member from 2017 and member of the IEEE AESS Radar System Panel from 2019. Dr. Colone is the Associate Editor in Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Radar Systems. She was Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing from 2017 to 2020 and she is member of the Editorial Board of the Int. Journal of Electronics and Communications (Elsevier). She was Technical co-Chair of the IEEE 2021 Radar Conference (Atlanta, USA) and of the European Radar Conference EuRAD 2022 (Milan, Italy) and she served in the organizing committee and in the technical program committee of many international conferences.

Space Domain Awareness (SDA) is fundamental to obtaining a persistent and accurate picture of Space, which allows for operations to be implemented both at tactical and strategic levels. To enable space domain awareness, sensors are required to collect data that is then used to detect, track, and characterize space objects of interest, from debris to active assets. Among a variety of sensors that are currently used to collect relevant data, radars play a crucial role, given their ability to operate 24/7 and in all weather and illumination conditions. Nevertheless, the radar systems that are employed for SDA must be very powerful and with very large apertures since the targets are positioned at a very long distance from Earth. This makes them very expensive and often not affordable.

The first part of this tutorial will introduce fundamental aspects of space object detection, tracking, and characterization with radar systems. This will be rapidly followed by the concept of reuse of existing assets to drastically reduce the system costs. Two solutions will be detailed in this tutorial. The first solution is to detect and track satellites at GEO by using long-baseline bistatic radar (LBBR) configurations that make use of existing radar systems as transmitters and radio telescopes as receivers. The concept will be introduced, followed by the implementation of the system and the associated signal processing. Examples will be shown based on real data collected during recent experiments carried out within the NATO SET-293 RTG. 

The second solution will focus on the use of passive radar for Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) space object surveillance using existing terrestrial transmitters as non-cooperative illuminators of opportunity. Passive radar offers a cost-effective alternative to active radar systems, also used for space object surveillance, by utilizing signals from existing sources, such as radio and television transmitters, or other radar systems, instead of dedicated transmitters. Detecting space objects using passive radar requires receivers equipped with large antenna arrays or radio dish telescopes capable of capturing the extremely weak signals reflected from these objects. Researchers from the Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, and the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, led by Konrad Jedrzejewski, have pioneered the use of antenna arrays, approximately 60 meters in diameter, from the LOFAR European network of astronomical radio telescopes for this purpose. They have developed advanced signal processing techniques and conducted experimental observations of satellites which will be showcased during this tutorial. These experiments have successfully demonstrated the viability of passive radar for space target surveillance.

Prof. Konrad Jędrzejewski is a Professor at the Warsaw University of Technology (WUT), received his M.Sc. degree in electronics and telecommunications and his Ph.D. in electronics, both with honors, in 1995 and 2000, respectively, from the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology at WUT. In 2014, he earned a D.Sc. degree in electronics. From 2000 to 2019, he served as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology at WUT, and in 2019, he was promoted to Associate Professor. He is currently a Leader of the Adaptive Information Processing Systems Team. He is the author of more than 120 scientific publications and holds three patents. His research interests include statistical and adaptive signal processing, radar signal processing, biomedical signal processing, machine learning, and A/D converters. Notably, his recent research has focused on passive radar systems for observing Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) space objects using terrestrial illuminators of opportunity. The results of this research have been presented at numerous leading international radar conferences, including the 2021 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf21) in Atlanta, the 2022 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf22) in New York, the 2022 19th European Radar Conference (EuRAD) in Milan, the International Conference on Radar Systems (RADAR 2022) in Edinburgh, the 2023 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf23) in San Antonio, the IEEE International Radar Conference 2023 in Sydney, and the 2024 IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf24) in Denver. At the IEEE International Radar Conference 2023 in Sydney, he was awarded first prize for the Best Paper Award for his paper titled: “Passive Multistatic Localization of Space Objects Using LOFAR Radio Telescope.” Since 2020, he has been an active member of the Research Task Groups focusing on Space Domain Awareness within the NATO Science and Technology Organization. Since March 2023, he has served as Chair of the Poland Chapter of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. Previously, from March 2019 to February 2023, he held the position of Vice-Chair of the Poland Chapter of the IEEE Signal Processing Society.

Prof. Marco Martorella received his Laurea degree (Bachelor+Masters) in Telecommunication Engineering in 1999 (cum laude) and his PhD in Remote Sensing in 2003, both at the University of Pisa. He is now Professor at the School of Engineering of the University of Birmingham, where is Head of the Microwave Integrated Systems Laboratory (MISL), Vice-Director at the Radar and Surveillance Systems (RaSS) National Laboratory in Pisa and Chair of the NATO Sensors and Electronics Technology (SET) Panel. He is author of about 300 international journal and conference papers, 3 books and 20 book chapters. He has presented several tutorials at international radar conferences, has lectured at NATO Lecture Series and organised international journal special issues on radar imaging topics. He has chaired several NATO research activities, including the SET-293 RTG on “RF Sensing for Space Situational Awareness” and the SET-250 RTG on “Multi-dimensional Radar Imaging”, one Exploratory Team and three Specialist Meetings on imaging- and space-related themes. He has been recipient of the 2008 Italy-Australia Award for young researchers, the 2010 Best Reviewer for the IEEE GRSL, the IEEE 2013 Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award, the 2016 Outstanding Information Research Foundation Book publication award for the book Radar Imaging for Maritime Observation, four NATO SET Panel Excellence Awards (2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023) and two NATO STO Excellence Award (2022. 2024). He is a co-founder of ECHOES, a radar systems-related spin-off company. His research interests are mainly in the field of radar, with specific focus on radar imaging, multidimensional radar, passive radar and space situational awareness. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Sampling using a set of spatially distributed sensors finds extensive applications, such as radar, communications, telescope, sonar to list a few. The configuration of sensor arrays is a key parameter that plays a fundamental role in the sampling performance. Since the array configuration characterizes the structure of the spatial filters, sparse array design optimizes the sensor placement to achieve the desired performance. As the number of sensors typically dictates the number of costly front-end processing chains, sparse arrays then open the door to save on their size, weight, and power (SWaP). Put another way, given the SWaP budget, sparse arrays can enhance the processing performance via optimizing array configuration. Driven by the increasing importance of sparse arrays, research into sparse array design techniques continues unabated.

In this tutorial, we begin with reviewing the fundamentals and concepts of array signal processing, including array fundamentals, conventional beamforming and direction of arrival (DOA) estimation. Second, we talk about two main categories of sparse arrays, structured and unstructured sparse arrays, especially focus on reconfigurable sparse arrays (RSA). RSA can extract the impinging interference and clutter statistics from the received data and changes its configuration in terms of the performance metric cognitively. Finding the optimal array weights and sparse configuration is a complex optimization problem. In this tutorial, we are going to delineate on the sparse array design based on convex optimization techniques, including mixed-integer programming (MIP), semi-definite relaxation (SDR), successive convex approximation (SCA), and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). We then explore Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven RSA design in cognitive sensing, emphasizing a fast Perception-Action Cycle (PAC) that includes sensing, learning, and action. Practical considerations such as hardware constraints, noisy data, and real-world implementation challenges will also be discussed, providing participants with a well-rounded understanding of optimization and AI techniques for RSAs in modern RF environments. 

Prof. Xiangrong Wang received the Ph.D. degree in signal processing from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia, in 2015. From February to September 2016, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Center for Advanced Communications, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA. She is currently a Professor with the School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China. She is the recipient of the 2023 Barry Carlton Award of the IEEE AES Society. She was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie action (MSCA) Individual Fellowship sponsored by the European Union. She is a member of the IEEE SP Society SAM Technical Committee and IEEE SP Society Education Center Editorial Board Member. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor of the IEEE transactions on Radar Systems and Elsevier Digital Signal Processing. She is the IEEE AESS Distinguished Lecturer (2025-2026). Her research interests include array signal processing, radar signal processing, integrated radar and communications.

Dr. Syed Ali Hamza received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University, PA, USA in 2020. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Widener University, PA, USA. His research interests are statistical and array signal processing, deep learning-based radar signal processing and sparse array beamforming.

This tutorial will discuss the latest advances in the in-band Full Duplex (FD) Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology, focusing on its recent promising considerations for realizing communications and localization/sensing in the same time and frequency resources. The evolution of in-band FD radios, from their initial proof of concept till their recent partial consideration in 3GPP Release 17, under the integrated access and backhaul paradigm, will be discussed together with their various emerging simultaneous transmit and receive MIMO architectures (fully digital, hybrid analog and digital, metasurface-antenna based, wideband, as well as integrated with Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs)) for different frequency bands and operational conditions (far- and near-field). Information processing schemes, including machine learning approaches, for realizing simultaneous data communication and channel estimation, sensing-aided beam alignment and localization, as well as simultaneous uplink and downlink communications and tracking of moving targets will be presented.

The tutorial will be concluded with a detailed discussion on novel perspectives and future directions for FD-MIMO-enabled Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) in the upcoming 6G wireless networks.

Dr. George C. Alexandropoulos received the Engineering Diploma (Integrated M.S.c), M.A.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering and Informatics from the School of Engineering, University of Patras, Greece in 2003, 2005, and 2010, respectively. He has held senior research positions at various Greek universities and research institutes, and he was a Senior Research Engineer and a Principal Researcher at the Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab, Paris Research Center, Huawei Technologies France, and at the Technology Innovation Institute, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, School of Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece and an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA. His research interests span the general areas of algorithmic design and performance analysis for wireless networks with emphasis on multi-antenna transceiver hardware architectures, full duplex MIMO, active and passive RISs, ISAC, millimeter wave and THz communications, as well as distributed machine learning algorithms. He currently serves as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, Frontiers in Communications and Networks, and the ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies. Prof. Alexandropoulos is a Senior Member of the IEEE Communications, Signal Processing, Vehicular Technology, and Information Theory Societies, the Chair of the EURASIP Technical Area Committee on Signal Processing for Communications and Networking, as well as a registered Professional Engineer of the Technical Chamber of Greece. From 2022 to 2024, he was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society. He has participated and/or technically managed more than 15 European Union, international, and Greek research, innovation, and development projects, including the H2020 RISE‑6G, SNS JU TERRAMETA, SNS JU 6G-DISAC, and ESA PRISM projects dealing with RIS-empowered smart wireless environments, THz RISs, distributed ISAC, and RIS demonstration for localization and mapping, respectively. He was the recipient of the best Ph.D. thesis award 2010, IEEE Communications Society Best Young Professional in Industry Award 2018, EURASIP Best Paper Award of the Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking 2021, IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications 2021, Best Paper Award from the IEEE GLOBECOM 2021, IEEE Communications Society Fred Ellersick Prizes 2023 and 2024, IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize 2024, and NKUA’s Research Excellence Award for the academic year 2023-2024. More information is available at www.alexandropoulos.info.

Dr. Besma Smida is an Associate Professor of electrical and computer engineering with the University of Illinois at Chicago. After completing her appointment as a Post-Doctoral Researcher and later a Lecturer at Harvard University, she became an Assistant Professor of electrical and computer engineering with Purdue University Northwest. She received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Quebec (INRS), Montreal, QC, Canada. She was a Research Engineer with the Technology Evolution and Standards Group of Microcell, Inc., (now Rogers Wireless), Montreal. She took part in wireless normalization committees (3GPP, T1P1). She has served as North America Chair of IEEE Communication Society, North America (Region 4) representative of IEEE Communication Society, Chair for IEEE Women in Engineering, Chicago Section, Chair of IEEE Communication Chapter, Chicago Section.
She currently serves as Area Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTION ON GREEN COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING, Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS and IEEE OPEN JOURNAL OF THE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY. Previously she served as Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE COMMUNICATION LETTERS, and a Guest Lead Editor for special issues of the IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS.
She is a Communication Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2021-2023. She was highlighted by the IEEE Communications Society in their women in engineering in communications series. She was also included in the “100 Brilliant and Inspiring Women in 6G” List. She was awarded the INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine’s 2015 “100 Inspiring Women in STEM”. She received the Academic Gold Medal of the Governor General of Canada in 2007 and the NSF CAREER award in 2015. She was a recipient of the IEEE GLOBECOM best paper award 2021. Her research focuses on In-band Full-Duplex systems and applications, backscatter modulation, IoT, and two-way communication networks.

Today, more than 50 spaceborne SAR systems are systematically monitoring the Earth’s surface. SAR is unique in its imaging capability: It provides high-resolution imaging independent from daylight, cloud cover and weather conditions for a multitude of applications ranging from geoscience and climate change research, environmental and Earth system monitoring, 2D and 3D mapping, change detection, 4D mapping (space and time), disaster monitoring, security-related applications up to planetary exploration. Therefore, it is predestined to monitor dynamic processes on the Earth’s surface in a reliable, continuous and global way. In the past few years a new era has started for spaceborne SAR systems with the number of satellites fast increasing due to NewSpace SAR initiatives. These small satellites complement the large full-fledged SAR systems with global coverage, building a network of satellites which is able to provide sub-daily coverage in a reliable way. Looking ahead, future spaceborne SAR systems with advanced imaging modes and digital beamforming will have an imaging performance one order of magnitude superior than that of current systems. Innovative multistatic SAR concepts will allow for new information products opening the door for a wealth of novel applications. 

This course covers all system-related aspects of spaceborne SAR systems including SAR basics, theory, signal processing, image properties, SAR imaging modes, SAR system concept and design, spaceborne SAR missions, interferometry, polarimetry, tomography, applications, advanced SAR technologies (e.g., digital beamforming), innovative SAR concepts and techniques (e.g., multistatic SAR) and future developments. The course is fully interdisciplinary and well suited for participants interested in learning different aspects of the entire end-to-end system chain of spaceborne SAR systems. It is also thought to provide a solid background knowledge for participants which have a focus on radar applications and image processing.

Prof. Alberto Moreira is Director of the Microwaves and Radar Institute at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and a Full Professor with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, in the field of microwave remote sensing. He has been contributing to the advancement of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems with innovative concepts, technologies and associated signal processing for more than 35 years. Today, his DLR Institute contributes to several scientific programs and projects for spaceborne SAR missions such as TerraSAR‐X, TanDEM‐X, SAR‐Lupe and SARah as well as Kompsat-6, PAZ, Sentinel‐1, BIOMASS, ROSE‐L, Harmony, Sentinel-1NG, Envision and VERITAS. The TanDEM‐X mission, led by his Institute, is the first bistatic spaceborne SAR system consisting of two satellites flying in close formation and has generated a global, high-resolution digital elevation model of the Earth with unprecedented accuracy. Prof. Moreira is the initiator and Principal Investigator (PI) of this mission. He has authored or co‐authored more than 500 publications in international conferences and journals, 8 book chapters and holds more than 45 patents. He is an IEEE Fellow and has served as President of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society in 2010. Prof. Moreira is the recipient of several international awards including the IEEE AESS Fred Nathanson Award (1999), the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Technical Field Award (2007), the IEEE W.R.G. Baker Award from the IEEE Board of Directors (2012), the IEEE GRSS Distinguished Achievement Award (2014) and the IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications (2023). His professional interests and research areas encompass end‐to‐end spaceborne radar system design, microwave techniques and system concepts, signal processing, and remote sensing applications.

A Frequency Diverse Array (FDA) introduces a controllable frequency offset across transmit elements and ensures a range-selective transmit beampattern, which is a quantum leap beyond phased arrays’ angle-only resolution. This unique capability allows FDA radars to distinguish between multiple targets located at the same angle. Furthermore, by leveraging integration with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology, FDA-MIMO systems achieve additional degrees of freedom (DOFs) for performance optimization. Consequently, a host of applications can benefit from FDA-MIMO radar, including adaptive target detection, range-angle-velocity multi-dimensional parameter estimation, clutter/jammer suppression, target tracking, high-resolution wide-swath synthetic aperture radar imaging, and integrated radar-communication. Unlike traditional MIMO radars, FDA-MIMO radars also exhibit robustness against mainlobe deceptive jammers and range-ambiguous clutter, thanks to their ability to differentiate returns from various ranges. Last but not least, through joint transceiver design, encompassing frequency increments, radar codes, and receive filters, target detection performance can be enhanced in signal-dependent interference environments.

This tutorial provides an in-depth exploration of the FDA radar potentials ranging from target detection to remote sensing applications. Furthermore, the tutorial introduces experimental systems and presents findings based on real data, with an overview on the most recent research published in IEEE Transactions and related journals.

Prof. Antonio De Maio received the Dr. Eng. (Hons.) and Ph.D. degrees in information engineering from the University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. From October to December 2004, he was a Visiting Researcher with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, NY, USA. From November to December 2007, he was a Visiting Researcher with the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. He is currently a Professor with the University of Naples Federico II. His research interest lies in the field of statistical signal processing, with emphasis on radar detection, optimization theory applied to radar signal processing, and multipleaccess communications. He is the recipient of the 2010 IEEE Fred Nathanson Memorial Award as the young (less than 40 years of age) AESS Radar Engineer 2010 whose performance is particularly noteworthy as evidenced by contributions to the radar art over a period of several years, with the following citation for “robust CFAR detection, knowledge-based radar signal processing, and waveform design and diversity”. He is the corecipient of the 2013 best paper award (entitled to B. Carlton) of the IEEE Transactions on
Aerospace and Electronic Systems with the contribution “Knowledge-Aided (Potentially Cognitive) Transmit Signal and Receive Filter Design in Signal-Dependent Clutter”. He is the recipient of the 2024 IEEE Warren White Award for outstanding achievements due to a major technical advance (or series of advances) in the art of radar engineering, with the citation “For contributions to radar signal processing techniques for target detection, waveform design and electronic protection”.

Prof. Lan Lan was born in Xi’an, China, in 1993. She is currently an Associate Professor with the National Key Laboratory of Radar Signal Processing, Xidian University, and she serves as the vice director with the International Cooperation Base of Integrated Electronic Information System of Ministry of Science and Technology, Xidian University. She received the Ph.D. degree in signal and information processing from Xidian University, Xi’an, in 2020. From July 2019 to July 2020, she was a Visiting Ph.D. Student with the University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy. Her research interests include frequency diverse array radar systems, MIMO radar signal processing, target detection, and ECCM. Prof. Lan was selected as the Top 2% Scientists Worldwide 2023 & 2024 by Stanford University, the Future Female Scientists Program in 2025, the Youth Elite Scientist Sponsorship Program by China Association for Science and Technology in 2022, and the XXXV-th URSI Young Scientists Award in 2023. She is the TPC Member and Session Chair of important conferences, including the ICASSP, IEEE Radar Conference, International Conference on Radar, and IEEE SAM. She is currently on the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology and Digital Signal Processing.

This tutorial covers advanced radar detection from first principles and develop the concepts behind Space-Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) and advanced, yet practical, adaptive algorithms for realistic data environments. Detection theory is reviewed to provide the student with both the understanding of how STAP is derived, as well as to gain an appreciation for how the assumptions can be modified based on different signal and clutter models. Radar received data components are explained in detail and the mathematical models are derived so that the student can program their own MATLAB or other simulation code to represent target, jammer and clutter from a statistical framework and construct optimal and suboptimal radar detector structures. The course covers state-of-the-art STAP techniques that address many of the limitations of traditional STAP solutions, offering insight into future research trends. 

Dr. Scott Goldstein is a Senior Vice President at Parsons Corporation and has served at executive levels in government, industry and academia.  He achieved the rank of Major General in the United States Air Force and has led organizations in industry as well as served as a Chief Technology Officer, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Scientist. He has performed fundamental research and development in radar detection and estimation theory, Space Time Adaptive Processing and advanced systems concepts. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the IEEE Radar Systems Panel. He received the 2002 IEEE Fred Nathanson Radar Engineer of the Year Award and the 2019 IEEE Warren D. White Award for Excellence in Radar Engineering.

Dr. Mike Picciolo is Senior Radar and EW Architect at Anduril Industries, in the Electronic Warfare organization. Previously, he was Director of Mission Engineering in the Engineering, Integration and Logistics Division at SAIC. Previously he served as Chief Technology Officer, NSS Division, at ENSCO.  Prior, he was the Associate Chief Technologist for Dynetics and Chief Engineer of the Advanced Missions Solutions Group in Chantilly, VA. He has in-depth expertise in Radar, ISR systems, Space Time Adaptive Processing and conducts research in advanced technology development programs. Has deep domain expertise in SAR/GMTI radar, communications theory, waveform diversity, wireless communications, hyperspectral imagery, IMINT, SIGINT, and MASINT intelligence disciplines. He is a member of the IEEE Radar Systems Panel, received the 2007 IEEE Fred Nathanson Radar Engineer of the Year Award, the 2018 IEEE AESS Outstanding Organizational Leadership Award, and founded the IEEE Radar Summer School series.
 

Dr. Robert Lee is a Vice President at Parsons Corp. He has performed research and development in electronic warfare systems and advanced systems multidomain concepts involving ISR, space superiority, and remote sensing. Dr. Lee has authored 32 refereed publications in a variety of technical disciplines, including high-energy, nuclear, and solar physics, hypersonics, applied mathematics, and laser spectroscopy. He has been recognized nationally for his space resiliency and multidomain operations work, including being awarded the National Reconnaissance Office’s Gold Medal.

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