Professor Michail Antoniou, University of Birmingham

The radar systems of the future will be distributed and networked. Compared to today’s monostatic radar sensors, where the transmitter and receiver are on the same site, these can use temporal and spatial diversity while simultaneously exploiting shared, intelligent, adaptive signal processing whose combined performance can exceed that of the sum of their parts. However, these systems are also much more complex, and to get from their current, mostly conceptual, level into commercial products, fundamental scientific and technological challenges persist, and new theoretical and practical foundations must be laid down.

The goal of this Research Chair is to break down the barriers between the theory and practice of distributed radar systems through basic and applied research on their enabling technologies, intelligent signal processing, and their real-world performance limits to pave the way for their ultimate adoption.

To enact this vision, Professor Antoniou and his team will address key questions which are currently only theoretically or partially answered. Those include how to deliver precision timing and positioning across distributed radar networks; how to combine individual sensor outputs to maximise radar performance; how to take advantage fully of spatial diversity to obtain information-rich, high-resolution radar imagery and object recognition; and how to de-risk novel distributed radar concept design through new theory and practical demonstration.

The Research Chair is supported by QinetiQ, a science and technology company with deep expertise in this field, and it is hosted by the University of Birmingham, an institution with a proud tradition in the field of radar that is home to one of the largest radar research groups in the UK.