(May 24, 2017) In Seattle, one of the industry's most important in the IEEE Radar Conference, the prestigious Barry Carlton Award was awarded this year to a "Made in Italy" research: a research that has made a decisive step forward for the theory and technologies of radar surveys and that is in fact the result of a collaboration between the Department of Information Engineering (DII) of the University of Pisa and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) Of Atlanta. The Barry Carlton Award is an award annually given to the authors of the best research article published on IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, the world's most renowned international magazine for radar and aerospace systems. The award-winning article, "Coherent radar target detection in heavy-tailed compound-Gaussian clutter", signed by Professors Fulvio Gini and Maria Sabrina Greco from DII and Dr. Jim Sangston of GTRI, proposes an innovative method to detect and distinguish, in a radar signal, disturbance signals from the environment, from signals useful to the purpose, such as those detecting the presence of objects, ships or aircraft, in the space where the signal is being sent.

ABOUT / THE STATEMENT

"When a radar system launches a signal in the environment," says Fulvio Gini, "it is possible to determine from the return signal analysis what objects met on its path, according to statistical models, but so far they could not always have a degree of usefulness for all possible operational scenarios. Our group started rethinking the model, so it was more complex and adhering to reality. We then verified that the algorithms of this model could be implemented on radar systems without excessively increasing complexity, thus enabling a more accurate and realistic mapping of covered signal areas. This research will definitely affect the design of high-resolution, next generation, avionic and satellite radar systems. "