Gaspare Galati is a Full professor in the Telecommunications department at the Tor Vergata University in Rome. Here he teaches Fundamentals of Radiolocation and Theory of Random Phenomena. His scientific activity focuses on telecommunications, signal processing, theory of detection and estimation, satellite navigation, air traffic control and in particular radar technology and systems within their numerous applications, including the control/management of air traffic and airport traffic.

Radar development in Italy and first applications for flight safety.
Radars were born in Italy during 1935-43 with professor Ugo Tiberio, who, for military purposes, studied the problems connected to the sighting of air and naval targets through radio waves. He developed the first Italian naval radar, named Gufo , at the Vallauri Institute of the Italian Navy (located in Livorno and known as "Mariteleradar"). In Italy, as in other countries, radar applications for flight safety came from the post war period when military apparatuses were converted for civil purposes. An exemplary case is theAN/TPS-1D. Its construction was entrusted to Carlo Calosi's Microlambda company, within the Marshall plan framework. This lead to the reconstruction and organization of the Fusaro (Naples) base and progressively to the development of an independent planning capacity with the birth of Sindel and later, with a merger to that of Selenia SpA. From the Sixties, Selenia has developed a range of air traffic control radars (ATCR 1, 2 and 3, then 22, 33 and 44) which are renowned and sold worldwide.

Recent developments of radars in aeronautical surveillance.
It is half a century now that ATC surveillance has been achieved by means of two sensors known as PSR :Primary Surveillance Radar , an example of these are the aforementioned ATCRs, and as SSR : Secondary Surveillance Radar capable of creating a connection with the on board transponder, which is a compulsory requirement in controlled air spaces. SSR works with the aircraft to locate it (including during elevation) and to identify it. Based on the concept of on board-ground cooperation "Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast" (ADS-B) systems have recently been planned, constructed and installed and provide the ATC system with information on the status and the intentions of the aircraft. This is collected with considerable precision by the on board navigation system. This data is known as "air derived" and requires validation through information collected by other means such as: PSR , Multilateration (MLAT) and Wide Area Multilateration (WAM). In Italy the development programme of a national ADS-B is being brought forward by ENAV. International experts agree that, in perspective, the primary radar will continue to be used for ATC purposes for an indefinite amount of time because of its ability to detect and locate all aircraft, even in the event of an unavailable transponder. Its evolution has entailed significant technology advances including: coherent transceivers, multi-beam antennas, solid state modular transmitters with pulse compression and increasingly more sophisticated processing systems for the detection of "in clutter" targets. On the contrary, secondary radars will be progressively replaced with ADS-B, MLAT and WAM which are more efficient and less expensive systems "with a non-rotating antenna" operating within the same range of frequencies.

System integration : final (dis)solution of radars ?
Also within environments external to ATC and especially in the military, hardware and the electromagnetic spectrum are being increasingly used in the most efficient way possible, integrating radiocommunications, electronic disturbance and radar surveillance (as I have written about in my latest book entitled "Cent'anni di radar", Edizioni Aracne , 2012). With the term "final (dis)solution" I do not mean the end of radars but the birth of multifunctional systems, based on Phased Array technologies encompassing radar functions. Within these systems it will not be easy to immediately recognise the "radar component" that we are currently familiar with as it will be, so to say, "melted" within the system. Future ATC primary radars, with additional functionality relating to security, will be integrated with the meteorological radar, in accordance with the MPAR (Multifunction Phased Array Radar) architecture which is currently being studied and tested in the U.S.A. This will provide for a reduction in the number of different types of apparatuses and an improvement in the performance of the ATC and Meteorological networks thanks to the flexibility in the electronic scanning of the antennas' beam. The higher costs of the Phased Array can be compensated by two factors. The first factor is the reduction of apparatuses from several to one, with a concurrent saving on management (personnel training, logistic support and spare parts)while the second factor is constituted by the economies of scale that can be implemented based on the significant quantity of trasceiver modules to produce(orders counting pieces in the millions for a market of at least European scale).