Summary: By means of UWB Radar sensors the tasks of material characterisation and object recognition can be performed on the basis of a previous imaging of the whole environment. A UWB version of the microwave ellipsometry method is applied for estimating the permittivity of homogeneous objects. The object recognition task is performed using bistatic sensor nodes on the basis of Radar measurements. The simulation-based performance evaluations show a very robust behavior due to suitable preprocessing of Radar data. The applications comprise the detection of fire sources, the detection of metallic object hidden under clothing, and the recognition of building structures.