PARABONI ALDO
In Memoriam
Aldo Paraboni (1940-2011).
On the thirteenth of April, 2011, at the age of 72 our friend and colleague Aldo Paraboni passed away after a short and sudden illness. Although retired for one year, he was still very active in the radio propagation group he had created in the early seventies at the Istituto di Elettronica (today Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria) of the Politecnico di Milano. We want to remember him, his smile, his positive thinking, his kindness and his passion to play guitar with friends with these few words.
Born in Vimercate, a small city north-east of Milan, in 1964 Aldo graduated in Electronic Engineering at Politecnico di Milano taking advantage for the whole period of a scholarship from the prestigious Ghisleri College.
In 1965 he joined the Communication Laboratory of the Politecnico di Milano, Istituto di Elettronica, where he became full professor in Antennas and Propagation theory in 1980. During his career Aldo was awarded two international prizes: the "1990 Piero Fanti International Prize" by Intelsat/Telespazio for his activity in satellite technology innovation and the "Premio Internazionale Cristoforo Colombo" for Space Communications by the City of Genova in 1995. Posthumously, the Alphasat TDP#5 payload was re-named "Aldo Paraboni payload" in his honour.
The character of Aldo Paraboni can be synthesized in two words: quiet genius.
Quiet because he was calm, reflective, and able to highlight, any time, the good side of a person and of a situation beyond the semblance that often seems to tell the opposite. Quiet because he never wanted to excel in relationships with people and in the research activity.
Genius because his outstanding ability in the analysis and synthesis of radio-propagation issues at centimetre and millimetre wave frequencies and in the design of advanced satellite communication systems has brought him to be one of the world-top experts in the field.
During his 45 years activity, Aldo addressed all the most important aspects of wave propagation impairments by atmospheric phenomena, for which he developed focused prediction models characterized by a strong physical sound basis that are still now considered incomparable. Aldo developed some of the current recommendations by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R) for the prediction of propagation impairments at frequencies above 10 GHz, because of their superior performance.
Also the experimental activity in the field of wave propagation along Earth to satellite links had Aldo in the position of international leader. His first involvement as research coordinator was with the Italian SIRIO satellite and later with the ITALSAT satellite propagation experiment or in the TDP#5 Alphasat propagation experiment finalized to gather information on the large scale spatial correlation of attenuation in Ka and Q band and for the design of future Propagation Impairments Mitigation Techniques making use of limited on board resources.
Aldo was a passionate teacher admired and loved by all students, as proved by the hundreds of master thesis he tutored, a charismatic leader who taught the love of science to all of us; he showed, with his example, that it is possible to “give” something to someone without waiting for anything in return - not even a “thank you”. He has left a great void in our group.