MATRAKA project: an airborne remote sensing system capable of new monitoring services

With great pleasure we announce that IDS Ingegneria Dei Sistemi SpA is taking part in the MATRAKA project, a research and development project for a new Environmental and Territory Monitoring system based on Radar technology, integrated with an innovative satellite communication system based on the development of new KA band Antennas

The MATRAKA project, launched by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and developed by IDS in collaboration with the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment of the National Research council of Italy, CNR-IREA, aims at creating an airborne remote sensing system capable of new environmental, infrastructure and safety monitoring services.

This objective will be pursued through the integration of two technological components.

The first one consists in developing specialised solutions for airborne radar systems operating in the microwave L band  in both SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) and Sounder (penetration radar) modes, and in developing inversion algorithms to render the raw data radar acquired in both these SAR and Sounder modes easy for the end users to interpret and use.

The IDS role within this microwave band technological component has been to develop a solution to be installed on a UAV to acquire data in SAR and SOUNDER modes while CNR-IREA has developed the processing algorithms.

The second technological component concerns a new phased array antenna system, aimed at Satcom on the move communications in Ka Band. This antenna is characterised by its low profile, making it suitable for installation on-board aerial platforms and high speed terrestrial platforms due to its intrinsically low aerodynamic drag.

Another important characteristic of this antenna is its ability to maintain stable communications with low earth orbiting satellites, due to its high speed tracking capability and even beam control to manage the handover between rising and setting satellites.