One of the most important installation placed inside the base of Decimomannu is the A.C.M.I (Air Combat Manouvering Instrumentation). ACMI is built by elettronic devices, instrumentations, computers and sensors that allow the air combat training with no real weapons.
The system has essentially electronic pods, carried by airplane, that transmit package of informations and physical parameters about the flight of the aircraft, like altitude, speed, heading, axis etc... . All these datas are received by receiver stations placed in the ground or in the sea locations (read D40 and R54) that codify these datas and send them to the central system (CCS and DDS) of the ACMI, situated inside the base of Decimomannu.
Here, with the help of wide screens and terminals that report all telemetry datas coming from the range and from the aircrafts flying inside into it, it's possible to follow air to air combat in real time, to record manouverings and behaviour of the planes and then, when flight sessions is terminated, it is possible to use all these datas and movies for a debreifing, where it will be possible to discuss about the mission to benefit of the all training.
The old ACMI system used in Decimomannu has been replaced by a new modern one. An alliance of israelian and european companies (BGT MLM) worked to update the system, now it's one of the most modern ACMI installation of the world.
New Autonomous ACMI range was released to Decimomannu Air Base on November, 30 2002.

"Playground" is the control center responsable of the operations inside the ACMI range. Radar controllers GCI or radar guidances work inside the center to follow planes in their air to air combat manouvering. AACMI is compatible to operate with national air defense radar and with AWACS.

The FPR, AIS and EHUD pods have the same size and weight of AIM-9 Sidewinder or most modern missiles. A single pod is mounted on the aircraft wing tip launch rail or under wing pylon with power and data connections to the host aircraft via an umbilical connection.
Each pod has a unique digital code number allowing aircraft on the range to be individually identified. The pods have a "spike" like pitot-static head at the front and internally a radar altimeter and air data sensor. These provide airspeed, altitude, yaw, pitch and roll information via a built in transponder to the TIS stations every 20 milliseconds. The AIS pod is in turn "interrogated" by electronics on the TIS stations every 100 milliseconds and through comparison of the data between the towers an accurate fix is achieved on the aircraft to within 4.5 meters (15ft).
Other data relayed via the AIS includes angle of attack, G, and radar antennas train angle (ATA), or seeker head look angle.
It also provides Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) information and data on weapons selection and firing signals which are subsequently interpreted by the CCS computer to enable it to generate a simulated weapons release and performance at the time of firing.
Main system used in Decimomannu is the FPR o flight profile recorder pod by BGT MLM (israelian and german companies). It has replaced the older AIS pod. The AACMI range is compatible also with the israelian pod EHUD.

The system includes a TIS master and seven remote radio ranging/data units that communicated with the AIS pods carried by the aircraft. The TIS master and one remote unit were located in a ground site and six remote units installed on sea buoys anchored in front of the west coast of Sardinia.
Actually an updating of the systems is in progress, a part of them are just integrated with israelian system Ehud.

Further informations:
http://www.focalplane.karoo.net/acmi/acmi.htm