About Us

The Radar and Surveillance Systems Laboratory in a nutshell

The Radar and Surveillance Systems (RaSS) is a National Laboratory of the National Interuniversity Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT). CNIT is a no-profit consortium composed of 44 Research Units (38 Italian Universities, 7 Departments of the National Research Council-CNR) and 6 National Laboratories (https://www.cnit.it/en/).
The RaSS Lab was founded in 2010 with the purpose of creating a critical mass to face research challenges in the field of radar and applied electromagnetics. Today, RaSS counts 32 people among researchers, technical and administrative staff.

The RaSS Lab has participated in several national and international research projects (often as leader), funded by the Italian MoD (Ministry of defence), EDA (European Defence Agency), MIUR (Ministry of Education), MISE (Ministry of Economic Development), EU FP7, EU H2020, ESA (European Space Agency), EOARD (European Office of Aerospace Research and Development), NATO SPS (Science for Peace and Security), NCIA (NATO Communications and Intelligence Agency), ARMASUISSE, ASI (Italian Space Agency), Tuscany Region, Industries like LEONARDO, MBDA, VITROCISET, INTERMARINE, GEM, E-GEOS, TELEDYNE, among others.

RaSS strives to maintain, and when possible to increase, the quality and excellence of the research activities and the results achieved. At the same time, it seeks to strengthen and consolidate its structure and to invest in basic research in new promising areas.
RaSS places itself between academia and industry with the aim to fill the gap existing between them. Many research projects that have been carried out at RaSS have led to the development of fully integrated demonstrators with TRLs between 5 and 6.
RaSS also focuses its effort on dissemination activities, including journal and book publications, presentations at international conferences, training activities under the form of short courses, tutorials, seminars and lectures for industry, government and various research institutions.
RaSS values all its collaborations nationally and internationally, counting today more than 50 partners across, industry, academia and both government and non-government research institutions.
RaSS has a strong participation in both the NATO and the European Defence Agency (EDA) contexts, where its personnel hold key roles within Panels and CapTechs.

RaSS is strongly involved and participates in research and experimental activities at the JCC lab. “Ugo Tiberio”, a joint Italian navy CSSN and CNIT laboratory.

RaSS Laboratory New Area

In response to an increased number of research activities and relative increase of personnel, and to allow for further expansions, in December 2021, the RaSS National Laboratory of CNIT has moved to a new area that occupies the entire 6th floor of one of the two main buildings in Galleria Gerace, Pisa, with more than 600 sqm of office and laboratory space.
The new space includes three separate laboratories, namely the Radar lab, the Microwave lab and the Quantum Radar Technology lab and two meeting rooms (one of which can seat comfortably more than 20 people) that can be reconfigured to accommodate both meeting and lecture theatre formats.
We are very excited to work in our new laboratory space and welcome you to visit us soon.

ISO 9001/2015 certificate

From January 2017 the RaSS Lab  has been certified ISO 9001/2015 by the international and independent body DNV GL. The certification refers to the “Design and development of technology systems and services in telecommunications, radar and electromagnetism and related computer aids and the design and manufacture of RF and microwave equipment and subsystems”.

CNIT- Lab RaSS ISO 9001/2015 DNV certificate

MISSION

The RaSS Lab carries out applied research activity in the field of radar, applied electromagnetism, remote sensing, telecommunication, signal processing and network security.

The RaSS Lab is organized in research areas, instrumental laboratories, security office, secretariat, quality control and public relation offices. Specifically, the current research areas are: namely radar systems, radar signal/image processing, remote sensing, antenna, electromagnetic modelling & materials, explorative areas.

Most of the RaSS Lab projects led to the production of technological demonstrators at TRL 5-6.

ECHOES s.r.l.

As a consequence of the high-level technological capabilities reached by the RaSS Lab, a CNIT spin-off company called ECHOES s.r.l has been created in July 2015 for the development of low emission, small size and low energy consumption radar systems.

ECHOES research activities mainly focus on harbour surveillance and environmental and structural monitoring. ECHOES aims at bringing to market solutions and skills developed in the field of scientific research. ECHOES focuses mainly on radar imaging (SAR, ISAR), multichannel and multistatic systems, detection and tracking processing, Automatic Target Recognition and Change Detection.

The innovation proposed by ECHOES is in the components of the radar system and software solutions for signal processing. The products offered by ECHOES exploit frequencies within the X and Ku-band (8-18 GHz). Also the use of compact and stationary antennas minimizes the footprint of each sensor allowing its easy installation on existing structures thus reducing installation costs. The ECHOES’ products are the result of years of research and prototyping. These prototypes were designed, developed and tested in the field at national and international research projects, where innovation and efficiency of such devices were the added value compared to existing products on the market.

ECHOES s.r.l. website