Dr. Farid Melgani 

Farid Melgani received the State Engineer degree in electronics from the University of Batna, Algeria, in 1994, the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Baghdad, Iraq, in 1999, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic and computer engineering from the University of Genoa, Italy, in 2003. From 1999 to 2002, he cooperated with the Signal Processing and Telecommunications Group, Department of Biophysical and Electronic Engineering, University of Genoa. Since 2002, he has been an Assistant Professor and then an Associate Professor of telecommunications at the University of Trento, Italy, where he has taught pattern recognition, machine learning, radar remote-sensing systems, and digital transmission. He is currently the Head of the Intelligent Information Processing (I2P) Laboratory, Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento. His research interests are in the area of processing, pattern recognition and machine learning techniques applied to remote sensing and biomedical signals/images (classification, regression, multitemporal analysis, and data fusion). He is coauthor of more than 130 scientific publications and is a referee for several international journals.
Dr. Melgani has served on the scientific committees of several international conferences. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters and a Senior Member of the IEEE Society.

Remote Sensing

Biosignals

Spectrophotometry

Teaching

Radar Remote Sensing Systems
Master Degree in Telecommunications Engineering
2° Year/2° Semester (6 credits)


This course aims at providing an advanced knowledge and design competence in the field of radar systems and technologies. Several kinds of radar sensors are analyzed from either a theoretical or practical viewpoint. The course is organized in six chapters selected in such a way to offer a panoramic view of radar capabilities in different application fields. In Chapter One, radar systems are introduced in order to provide the basic concepts and to highlight some of the problems related to the operation of generic radars. Chapter Two recalls some concepts already seen in the course of “Remote Sensing Systems 1” and investigates, in more details, aspects related to the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Chapter Three describes an important processing feature of SAR, that is the interferometry. Furthermore, it opens a window on the application of interferometry in the field of environmental monitoring. Chapter Four is devoted to the meteorological radar, another important radar sensor that invaded our daily life. Chapter Five provides a description of different radar surveillance systems for aerial traffic over airports. Finally, Chapter Six introduces another kind of active sensors, that is the sonar which is involved in applications related to underwater exploration.

Topics

1. Introduction to Radar Systems
Basic Radar. Radar Equation. Pulse Repetition Frequency. Probabilities of False Alarm and of Detection. Radar Cross Section. Doppler Shift Frequency. Moving Target Detector. Blind Speeds and Clutter Attenuation. Pulse Doppler Radar and applications. An example of pattern recognition

2. Synthetic Aperture Radar
The SAR system (review of basic concepts). Principles of SAR image formation: advanced aspects. Statistical properties of SAR images. SAR data models. Multidimensional SAR images.

3. SAR Interferometry
Interferometric SAR Principles. Height reconstruction. Interferometric fringes. Phase unwrapping. Branch-Cut and LS methods. Interferometric correlation. Interferometry for motion mapping.

4. Meteorological Radar
Meteorological targets. Reflectivity factor. The meteorological radar equation. Attenuation effects. Polarimetry for meteorology. Meteorological radars. Weather signals. Weather signal processing.

5. Aerial Traffic Control
Tracking radars. Angle tracking. Amplitude-Comparison monopulse. Conical-Scan tracker. Tracking in range. Air traffic control. Primary surveillance radars. Secondary surveillance radars.

6. Sonar Systems
Sonar principles. Arrays and beam patterns. Propagation of sound in water. Noise in sonar systems. Reverberation. The sonar equations. Active sonar.

Previous Related Courses
Remote Sensing Systems 1.

Examination Type: Oral
Instead to carry out a complete oral examination, the student may also choose to make a partial oral examination (on two specific topics of the course) integrated with a project related to a thesis or a detailed theoretical study of an argument of her/his choice studied during the course.

Books of Reference
· C. Oliver, S. Quegan, Understanding Synthetic Aperture Radar Images, London: Artech House, 1998.
· G. Franceschetti, R. Lanari, Synthetic Aperture Radar Processing, London: CRC Press, 1999.
· M. I. Skolnik, Introduction to Radar Systems, 3rd Edition, McGraw-Hill International Editions, 2001.
· R. J. Doviak, D. S. Zrnic, Doppler Radar and Weather Observations, Academic Press, 1993.
· R. O. Nielsen, Sonar Signal Processing (Acoustics Library), Artech House.
· Slides of the course.

Books for Consultation
· F. T. Ulaby, M. C. Dobson, Handbook of Radar Scattering Statistics for Terrain, Artech House Inc., 1989.
· F. W. Leberl, Radargrammetric Image Processing, Artech House Inc., 1990.
· H. Sauvageot, Radar Meteorology, Artech House, 1992.