2025 Summer School on Synthetic Aperture Imaging for Radar, Sonar, and Optics
April 1st to 3rd 2025
ABSTRACT
The Summer School is being planned with the Pre-conference satellite workshop to ICASSP 2025 titled “Crossroads of Machine Learning and Signal Processing” that will be held in New Delhi between April 2nd and 3rd 2025.
There are plenty of signals of interest — complex, hidden, weak, and distant — that are difficult to measure or acquire. For instance, an airborne radar’s swath is limited while using a conventional phased array antenna. Similarly, it is tedious to image a three-dimensional (3-D) object using a single sensor. In optics, in the absence of advanced phase retrieval techniques, the complex signal cannot be accurately estimated from magnitude-only diffraction patterns. Once the signal is acquired, retrieving useful information from it entails developing an additional set of algorithms to sample, process, and enhance it. It is against this background that synthetic aperture (SA) systems, which provide improved signal acquisition and information extraction than is inherently possible via a single sensor, have gained salience in various signal processing applications. The concept of SA has been leveraged in a variety of applications to improve environmental imaging and sensing performance beyond the spatial or temporal resolution limits of conventional antennas and sensors. In general, SAs are generated by moving an antenna, sensor, or probe to different spatial locations such that it records phase coherent measurement samples over an extended volume. The most prominent example of SA application is, of course, in radar remote sensing. In the case of synthetic aperture radar (SAR), the antenna is mounted on an airplane and constant velocity motion along the flight path creates an angle- dependent Doppler shift that is used to image a ground scene with cross-range resolution proportional to the length of the aircraft’s path along the coherent processing interval. In channel sounding applications where the propagation characteristics of a static wireless environment must be determined, the SA is created by using a robot or other mechanical positioner to move the antenna and collect phase-coherent samples from different spatial locations. The complex samples are then combined coherently in post-processing to yield high-resolution angle estimates of signal sources and scatterers.
The rising importance of SAs in signal processing was recently recognized by the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) when it formally approved the creation of the Synthetic Aperture Technical Working Group (SA-TWG) in April 2020 under the auspices of the Sensor Array and Multichannel (SAM) Technical Committee (TC): https://signalprocessingsociety.org/community-involvement/synthetic-aperture- technical-working-group/synthetic-aperture-technical
This subsequently led to the establishment of the first standards committee of SPS in the form of the IEEE Synthetic Aperture Standards Committee (SASC) in 2021: https://sagroups.ieee.org/sps-sasc/
The SA-TWG itself has spanned into a large community drawing researchers from at least six different TCs: Applied Signal Processing Systems TC, Bio Imaging and Signal Processing TC, Computational Imaging TC, Sensor Array and Multichannel TC, Signal Processing for Communications and Networking TC, Signal Processing Theory and Methods TC. A crucial aspect of these efforts is to train a future workforce and researchers who are well-equipped with the contemporary knowledge of SA technologies and challenges. In this context, this summer school, the first of its kind, aims to bring together leaders from across the globe to disseminate learning on various SA topics – SAR, ISAR, sonar, ISAC, and optics – to students. The seasonal school is organized by various members of the SA-TWG.
Venue: Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology New Delhi, Okhla Phase III, New Delhi 110020, India
Email of the Primary Technical Contact: shobha@iiitd.ac.in
Organization Committee:
- General Chairs: Kumar Vijay Mishra, United States DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, USA, and Shobha Sundar Ram, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, India
- Technical Chairs: Raghu Raj, US Naval Research Laboratory, USA, and Muralidhar Rangaswamy, US Air Force Research Laboratory
Target Audience: Graduate students (M.Tech, PhD Students), young professionals, early career academics.
TECHNICAL PROGRAM SCHEDULE
| 1/4 | 2/4 | 3/4 | |
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | |
| 8:00 AM | Welcome and Introduction | Convex Optimization for Adaptive RadarMuralidhar Rangaswamy US Air Force Research Laboratory, USA |
Synthetic Apertures in OpticsSamuel Pinilla Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK |
| 8:30 AM | Introduction to SARRaghu Raj US Naval Research Laboratory, USA |
||
| 9:00 AM | |||
| 9:30 AM | |||
| 10:00 AM | Tea Break | Tea Break | Tea Break |
| 10:30 AM | SAR Signal ProcessingChris Barnes Georgia Tech, USA |
Synthetic Apertures in ISAC: FundamentalsM. R. Bhavani Shankar University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg |
Computational LidarGonzalo Arce University of Delaware, USA |
| 11:00 AM | |||
| 11:30 AM | |||
| 12:00 PM | |||
| 12:30 PM | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch |
| 1:00 PM | |||
| 1:30 PM | Inverse Synthetic Aperture RadarMarco Martorella United Kingdom |
Synthetic Apertures in ISAC: ApplicationsKumar Vijay Mishra US DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, USA |
Industry Keynote Talk 2: Mathworks India |
| 2:00 PM | |||
| 2:30 PM | Research Challenges and Concluding DiscussionAll Speakers of Day 3 | ||
| 3:00 PM | |||
| 3:30 PM | Tea Break | Tea Break + Poster Session | Tea Break |
| 4:00 PM | Synthetic Aperture SonarAnubha Gupta IIIT Delhi, India |
“Industry Keynote Talk 1: High Fidelity RF Modeling and Simulation”Sandeep Gogineni Information Systems Laboratories Inc., USA |
Social Activity(Visit to historical monuments in New Delhi) |
| 4:30 PM | |||
| 5:00 PM | Research Challenges and Concluding DiscussionAll Speakers of Day 1 | Research Challenges and Concluding DiscussionAll Speakers of Day 2 | |
| 5:30 PM | |||
| 6:00 PM | Plenary Session #1 | Plenary Session #2 | |
| 6:30 PM | |||
| 7:00 PM | |||
| 7:30 PM |
Christopher F. Barnes is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Prof. Barnes has thirty-nine years of experience in basic and applied research and has twenty-seven years of experience teaching SAR at the professional education and graduate student level. He is author of Synthetic Aperture Radar, Wave Theory Foundations, Analysis & Algorithms, 2015.
Marco Martorella received his Laurea degree (Bachelor+Masters) in Telecommunication Engineering in 1999 (cum laude) and his PhD in Remote Sensing in 2003, both at the University of Pisa. He is now Professor at the School of Engineering of the University of Birmingham, where is Head of the Microwave Integrated Systems Laboratory (MISL) and Director of the Communications and Sensing Cluster. He is also Chair of the NATO Sensors and Electronics Technology (SET) Panel and Vice-Director at the Radar and Surveillance Systems (RaSS) National Laboratory in Pisa (Italy). He is author of about 300 international journal and conference papers, 4 books and more than 20 book chapters. He has chaired several NATO research activities, including the SET-293 RTG on “RF Sensing for Space Situational Awareness” and the SET-250 RTG on “Multi-dimensional Radar Imaging”, one Exploratory Team and three Specialist Meetings on imaging- and space-related themes. He has been recipient of the IEEE 2013 Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award, the 2016 Outstanding Information Research Foundation Book publication, four NATO SET Panel Excellence Awards (2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023) and two NATO STO Excellence Award (2022. 2024). He is a co-founder of ECHOES, a radar systems-related spin-off company. His research interests are mainly in the field of radar, with specific focus on radar imaging, multidimensional radar, passive radar and space situational awareness. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.
Muralidhar Rangaswamy (S’89-M’93-SM’98-F’06) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, in 1992.,He is presently a Senior Electronics Engineer at the Sensors Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Hanscom Air Force Base, MA. Prior to this, he has held industrial and academic appointments. His research interests include radar signal processing, spectrum estimation, modeling non-Gaussian interference phenomena, and statistical communication theory. He has co-authored more than 70 refereed journal and conference record papers in the areas of his research interests. Additionally, he is a contributor to three books and is a co-inventor on two U.S. patents.,Dr. Rangaswamy received the 2004 Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award from the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society, the 2006 Distinguished Member award from the IEEE Boston Section, and the 2005 Charles Ryan Basic Research Award from the Sensors Directorate of AFRL, in addition to 20 AFRL scientific achievement awards.
Dr. Sandeep Gogineni has over 17 years of experience working on radar and wireless communications systems. He worked for 6 years as an on-site contractor for Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), developing novel signal processing algorithms and performance analysis for passive radar systems. He received the 2018 IEEE Dayton Section Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society Award for these contributions to passive radar signal processing. Prior to his time at AFRL, during his graduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Gogineni developed optimal waveform design techniques for adaptive MIMO radar systems and demonstrated improved target detection and estimation performance. This work was recognized with the Best Student Paper Award at the 2012 International Waveform Diversity & Design Conference (WDD). At Information Systems Laboratories Inc., Dr. Gogineni has been working as a senior research scientist on developing state-of-the-art high-fidelity RF modeling and simulation tools, channel estimation algorithms and optimal probing strategies for MIMO radar systems in the context of Cognitive Fully Adaptive Radar (CoFAR). He has also developed AI/ML based solutions for complex RF applications and implemented them on low C-SWaP neuromorphic hardware. His expertise includes statistical signal processing, modeling and simulation, detection and estimation theory, machine learning, artificial intelligence, performance analysis, and optimization techniques with applications to active and passive radar systems.
Kumar Vijay Mishra obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and M.S. in mathematics from The University of Iowa in 2015, M.S. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University in 2012, and B. Tech. summa cum laude (Gold Medal, Honors) in electronics and communication engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Hamirpur (NITH), India in 2003. He is currently Senior Fellow at the United States Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Adelphi. He is the recipient of several awards and fellowships. He is the lead / corresponding editor of the upcoming book Signal Processing for Joint Radar-Communications (Wiley-IEEE Press).