There has been a strong increase in interest in radar technology among South African engineers and organisations over the past year or so. This has been demonstrated by greater-than-expected interest in radar education and training courses in the country this year – which happens to be the seventy-fifth anniversary of the development of the first South African radar.

“I sense a dynamism in the South African radar sector at the moment,” observes University of Cape Town (UCT) Department of Electrical Engineering associate professor in radar Daniel O’Hagan. “The postgraduate course we held in March this year, Introduction to Radar, an examinable course, attracted 32 people – an unprecedented number attending a very deep course on radar.”

To meet this growing demand for radar education and training, during the last full week of June, the UCT Radar Masters Course and the UCT Radar Remote Sensing Group organised a radar educational course in Pretoria. It was held at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research because most of those wishing to attend were based in Gauteng. (Although organised by UCT Radar Masters Programme, this was not a core, examinable course.)

The course was entitled ‘Stimson’s Introduction to Airborne Radar’ in honour of leading US radar engineer and educator George W Stimson (1922–2009) and after his renowned book (now in its third, 2014, edition, edited and updated by Professor Hugh Griffiths, Christopher Baker and DavidAdamy). “It is the quintessential radar book,” explains O’Hagan. “It was originally written by Stimson to serve the needs of the company he worked for – the then Hughes Aircraft Company – when it was recruiting a lot of technical people who had no background in radar and who needed to be trained up on radar as fast as possible. So the course is ideal for a country like South Africa, seeking to rapidly expand its radar expertise.” (Hughes Aircraft really specialised in the development and production of radars and radar-guided missiles as well as spacecraft, particularly satellites; the radar and missiles business is now part of the Raytheon group while the satellites and spacecraft business was absorbed by Boeing.)

The course was actually presented by the lead editor of the third edition of the book, Griffiths, of the University College London. Originally, it was expected that between 15 and 18 people would attend. Then, as the growing interest became clearer, the estimate was increased to 30. In the end, 50 people attended. And that figure was a limit the organisers had to impose because they could not accommodate any more. (As the organisers planned to give each attendee a copy of the book, this also led to last-minute additional orders for the work from a famous global online retailer.)

“The interest was such that we’re considering rerunning the course next year for those who couldn’t be accommodated this year,” reports O’Hagan. Before then, however, the country will, in late October, host the 2015 international Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) Radar Conference – the first time this prestigious conference will be held in Africa. The theme of the conference will be ‘Out of Africa, always something new’ (the phrase was originally an ancient Greek proverb, probably referring to African wildlife, first explicitly quoted by the philosopher Aristotle [384–322 BCE]).

“We’re expecting a large number of overseas delegates, from the US, Europe and Asia (especially China), as well as a very large representation from local industry, academic, defence and other circles,” he affirms. “Nine tutorials will be given on the first day by the crème de la crème of local and international radar specialists. On the second day, the conference proper will start and will be addressed . . . by local and international experts.”