The Radar Festival on the Rhine: A Highlight in the History of the IEEE AESS

On 17 May 1904, a public experiment took place in Cologne on the Rhine, Germany, which would go down in history as an international milestone of engineering. On that day, Christian Hülsmeyer succeeded for the first time in detecting ships traveling on the Rhine by means of reflections of high-frequency electromagnetic waves: the birth of radar. After 115 years, on 19 October 2019, a ceremony reminded of this turning point in the history of technology. The Radar Festival on the Rhine became a highlight in the history of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS), which this article commemorates. On this occasion, AESS and Fraunhofer have produced a website that documents the historic events and its celebration.