International Radar Symposium 2025
Conference Report
Prof. Dr. Peter Knott
IRS 2025 Symposium Chairman
The German Institute of Navigation (DGON) and the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR invited to the International Radar Symposium (IRS) 2025. After a highly successful series of radar symposia that started in Germany in 1998, this symposium took place in Hamburg. Due to the rapid development of technologies, radar is still an expanding technical and economical field with many practical applications both in civilian and military areas.
The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg is the second-largest city in Germany. It is known for its rich history and modern infrastructure. Situated on the river Elbe, Hamburg offers a wide range of attractions: The Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The Port of Hamburg is Germany's largest and Europe's third-largest, after Rotterdam and Antwerp. Hamburg is also a major European science, research, and education hub, with several universities and institutions. The conference venue, Design Hotel Gastwerk, offers a spacious and convenient conference area perfectly suited for the symposium’s captivating sessions and inspiring discussions.
In response to the call for papers, in total more than 104 papers from 21 different countries have been received. The Technical Programme Committee selected 82 submitted papers for oral and poster presentations and prepared a substantial and interesting conference programme. This fantastic response shows the worldwide large interest in radar techniques and radar systems for many different applications (automotive radar, drone detection, passive radar, radar data science, radar imaging, etc.). Thus, a general objective of this international conference to meet radar scientists and engineers for fruitful discussions and exchange of ideas was fully reached.
In total almost 162 radar experts from 24 different countries attended this symposium in Hamburg to present their work and 4 exhibitors showed their excellent products. There were strong delegations from Germany, UK, Poland, China, Italy, The Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, etc.
There was an important highlight event during the Symposium: the Christian Hülsmeyer Award for outstanding contributions in radar system design and development as well as educational achievements and IRS conference evolution was presented to Prof. Krzysztof Kulpa from Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. The Award ceremony took place during the Symposium Dinner am kai, Hamburg.
In the Closing Session, the IRS 2025 Best Paper Award was presented to Yihua Qin, Abdollah Ajorloo and Fabiola Colone for their paper “MUSIC Algorithm for Amplitude-based Array Processing in Multi-Channel Forward Scatter Radar”.
And the IRS 2025 Young Scientist Award went to Bartosz Tegowski and Alexander Koelpin for their paper “Compensation of Self-RCS and IQ-Demodulation Imperfections of Continuous-Wave Radar Systems”.
Radar technique is still an expanding and rapidly evolving field of research. There is a continuous progress in system performance that opens up many practical applications in the civilian as well as the military area. This International Radar Symposium will be an opportunity for radar experts from all over the world to meet, exchange results, and discuss new ideas.
Together with the Co-Chairs Krzysztof Kulpa, Thomas Dallmann and the DGON, the whole conference organization team is looking forward to meeting you again at the next IRS 2026 in Kraków, Poland,18-21 May 2026.
