The RADAR 20xx series of annual conferences currently circulates around five nations under the fatherly guidance of the IEEE AES Radar Systems Panel (http://www.ewh.ieee.org/aes). The series is organised with the support of the relevant engineering institutions in the host countries, respectively Societe Des Electriciens et des Electroniciens (SEE) in France, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in the USA, the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE) in China, the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) in the UK and the Institution of Engineers Australia (IEAust) in Australia. 

RADAR 2003 represented the first occasion on which Australia was host for the conference. It was held over the period 3-5 September 2003, with a pre-conference tutorial day on 2 September, at the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide, South Australia. Adelaide, population about one million, is not among the largest of Australian cities, Sydney and Melbourne being cities better-known internationally. 

However, Adelaide has not only an attractive ambience and environment, wedged between hills and sea, but most importantly for RADAR 2003, is the centre of the defence electronics industry in Australia. Willing volunteers for the Organising Committee were readily recruited from the strong radar research and industry base in Adelaide, with involvement of corresponding membership nationally and internationally. Co-sponsoring and underwriting the conference were the IEEE South Australia Section and the Centre for Sensor Signal and Information Processing (CSSIP), a university-based technology development and commercialisation centre with strong involvement in radar¹ . Other significant sponsors were Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO)² and the Tokyo-based US defence research agencies the Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD)³ and the Army Research Office - Far East (ARO-FE)⁴. 

The day before the conference formally opened (2 September) was devoted to tutorials, with two half-day tutorials available morning and afternoon. These proved to be popular and were well supported. Tutorials were Computer simulation in radar - methods and algorithms, led by Sergey Leonov (Raytheon Canada), Synthetic aperture radar led by Hugh Griffiths (University College London), An introduction to electronically scanned radar systems led by Chris Baker (QinetiQ, UK) and Clutter modelling and CFAR detection led by Simon Watts (Thales UK). 

The conference was formally opened on 3 September and over its three days it featured a mix of plenary sessions, including a scheduled time for posters, and three streams of technical presentations. The session titles within these streams were selected in advance by the technical program committee under its Chair, Dr Bevan Bates (DSTO), and proved to be an excellent forecast of the relative emphases of submitted papers. They were Radar Target Imaging, Reduced Dimension STAP Methods, Propagation, Interferometric SAR, Signal Processing, Electromagnetics, Target Classification and Identification, Phased Array Radar, GPR/UWB/Other applications, Multi-channel Interferometric SAR, Atmospheric Radar, Bistatic/Multistatic/Passive Radar, SAR Processing, Tracking and Fusion, SAR Application and Radar System Design, Tracking and Resource Management, and HF Radar. The last-listed was a full day conference-within-a-conference that drew a very significant international audience in this specific disciplinary focus. 

Further details of the conference are given elsewhere on this site. Conference proceedings are available in CD-ROM from IEEE, quoting Catalog Number 03EX695C. Printed proceedings were not produced at the time of the conference and negotiations are proceeding with IEEE concerning a special print run to satisfy post-conference purchases to be handled through IEEE. 

RADAR 2004 will be hosted by France in Toulouse over the period 19-21 October 2004. 

The web-site for this conference is www.see.asso.fr/radar2004/ RADAR 2003 will continue to maintain this reference web-site for several years by courtesy of CSSIP, one of its underwriting sponsors.

[1] See www.cssip.edu.au

[2] See www.dsto.defence.gov.au

[3] See www.tokyo.afosr.af.mil

[4] See www.arofe.army.mil/AROindex.htm

Secretariat

Plevin and Associates Pty Ltd PO Box 54 BURNSIDE 5066 South Australia
Tel +61 8 8379 8222 Fax +61 8 8379 8177 events@plevin.com.au

Last updated 01/01/2004