The Medicina Radio Observatory is studying all problems related to "antenna array implementation" through a prototype installation called MAD (Medicina Array Demonstrator). The observatory staff have also built new receiver demonstrators for the SKA called "BEST" (Basic Element for SKA Training), part of the EU-funded SKADS (SKA Design Studies) programme. The project started in 2005 and finished in 2009. It involved the installation of the new receivers on some reflectors of the North-South section (and later East-West section) of the Northern Cross telescope, along with new analog fiber-optic and coaxial digital finks from the front-end receiver boxes to the back-ends. The BEST project was divided in three parts:   There is an ongoing effort to use the 32 meter dish as a receiver for radar-based tracking system artificial satellites and space debris in Earth orbit. The system functions as a bistatic radar, where an emitter located in a different location sends a signal, which bounces off objects in orbit and the echo is picked up by a receiver. The 32 meter dish acts as receiver, while usually the Yevpatoria 70 meter located in Crimea, functions as a transmitter. The systems can either actively track debris to determine their orbit more precisely or utilize a technique called beam park, where the transmitting and receiving antennas are kept fixed at a given position and the debris pass in and out of the observed area. The measurements obtain through such a system can be used to determine object radar cross-section, time of peak occurrence, polarization ratio, bistatic doppler shift and target rotation. In one of the carried-out tests, Yevpatoria-Medicina system was able to detect an object with an estimated radar cross section of 0.0002 square meter, which was created by the Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 satellite collision. The system can also function as a multistatic radar using the 32 meter receivers at Medicina, the Noto Radio Observatory in Italy and the Ventspils Starptautiskais Radioastronomijas Centrs in Latvia. The Northern Cross radio telescope has also been part of space debris tracking studies, utilized as a multiple-beam receiver for a bistatic radar system. The first tested configuration is a quasi-monostatic radar system, with a 3 m dish as transmitter, located in Bagnara - 20 km from the receiver. The second configuration was a simulation of a true bistatic radar system with 7 m dish as transmitter located at the site of the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT).