Intelligent radar management by advanced beamscheduling algorithms based on short-time planning & constraints relaxation strategies

The intelligent radar management study project is composed of industrial partners, THALES Air Defence and AMS (a joint BAe Finmeccanica Company) involved in research and development in modern radar control techniques. The capabilities of modern ground based military multifunction radars cannot really be fully satisfied by using older sensor control strategies, due to the advance in radar technology and the complexity of the tactical environment. The most obvious radar management objective is the real-time optimisation of radar functionality according to an assessment of the current environment conditions, taking into account tactical requests from an external centre, in order to manage as well as possible, radar operational missions. The objective of the study is to evaluate the algorithms and techniques developed during the study. Results are based on a software demonstrator, specially developed for this purpose. The intelligent radar manager (IRM) in the present study is considered to integrate all the intelligent processes supporting the operation of MFR radar. As indicated in the figure it includes the MFR scheduler with a new component, the "supervisor" which embodies the intelligent classification, prioritisation and adaptive control of radar functions, which are required. The IRM demonstrator contains several other software components in addition to the supervisor and scheduler, as shown in the figure. While necessary for the operation of the simulation, the framework and environment simulator are not part of the IRM proper, there are here, only to emulate environment. Thus, they are not described further. In the following, we will focus on the supervisor and more specifically on the scheduler in detail.