The present paper deals with the Rheinmetall Italia 3D X-Band Search radar (X-TAR 3D) technology and applications. Aim of the paper is to illustrate the advanced technology and technique adopted for the development of the radar itself and the presentation of the main results obtained by recordings of real target data. The paper describes the philosophy which was followed in the design of the prototype, details its system architecture and shows the technological aspects connected to the subsystems constituting the radar itself. Particular emphasis will be given to data related to the "third dimension", obtained by digital beamforming and monopulse technique implementation into the Signal Processing hardware. Several recordings gathered in real time on target flights are presented together with the analysis results. Different radar subsystems like Planar Array Antenna, Transmitter modules, Receiver and Signal Processing are showed as well as their characteristics and performances. Finally an overview of the wide range of possible applications due to the very compact design, hardware modular concept and low cost, is illustrated.