The concept of using sound waves to gauge the
distance of objects around you was a well kept secret in the bat-circle till
Lazarro Spallanzan, in 1793, figured it out when he studied the ability of
blind bats t navigate using ultra-sound and form there the initial concept of
SONAR was born, which eventually gave way to RADAR, without any credit given to
the bats.
With the titanic disaster, the need for finding an
effective anti-collision system spurred research on RADAR as a system. Robert
Watson, a Scottish physicist, felt that its application could also be found in
war and so designed the first practical RADAR system. This was used by Great Britain
in World War II for aerial surveillance and is touted to be one of the reasons
for their own air defense system at the same time called the kammhuber Line.
Radar Antenna |
Radar finds use in navigation of ships and planes,
by the police for catching speeding automobiles and controlling traffic,
prediction of the weather, tracking of migratory patterns of birds, and of
course by the military which uses it for tracking or gunning down unwanted
elements.