Early game rush protection. Radar could be one of the commander abilities. (viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35978&hilit=commander+abilities)
This doesn't make much sense to me when you could just spare an engineer to throw down a radar station, which is just as good to stop early rushes.
Well the SupCom commander had it, not sure about the TA commander anymore. It was useful nevertheless. A small RADAR may relax the rush situation at the moment.
While we're on the topic of radar, T1 Radar's range is way too tiny. You can just as easily produce two Skitters on patrol for less cost, more coverage, more versatility and a weak weapon. Or you can use 4 skitters if you're REALLY hardcore.
I'm really missing the commander radar at this point. My hope is that it will be one of the commander abilities and Uber hasn't really started working on that system just yet and therefore not implemented it. After all, even though it wouldn't take that long to just strap in a temporary radar there at the moment, it would be double work if they redid it afterwards when the commander ability system was in place.