Split-Aperture Phased Array Radar Resource Management for Tracking Tasks

The next generation of radar systems will include advanced digital front-end technology in the apertures allowing for spatially subdividing radar tasks over the array, the so-called split-aperture phased array (SAPA) concept. The goal of this article is to introduce radar resource management for the SAPA concept and to demonstrate the added benefit of the SAPA concept for active tracking tasks. To do so, the radar resource management problem is formulated and solved by employing the quality of service based resource allocation model framework. As active tracking tasks may be scheduled simultaneously, the resource allocation of tasks becomes dependent on the other tasks. The solution to the resource allocation problem is obtained by introducing the adaptive fast traversal algorithm combined with a 3-D strip packing algorithm to handle task dependencies. It will be demonstrated by a simulation example that the SAPA concept can significantly increase the number of active tracks of a multifunction radar system compared to scheduling tasks sequentially.