Performance Improvement of Time-Balance Radar Schedulers Through Decision Policies

The resource management of a phase array system capable of multiple target tracking and surveillance is critical for the realization of its full potential. This paper aims to improve the performance of an existing method, time-balance (TB) scheduling, by establishing an analogy with a well-known stochastic control problem, the machine replacement problem. With the suggested policy, the scheduler can adapt to the operational scenario without a significant sacrifice from the practicality of the TB schedulers. More specifically, the numerical experiments indicate that the schedulers directed with the suggested policy can successfully trade the unnecessary track updates, say of nonmaneuvering targets, with the updates of targets with deteriorating tracks, say of rapidly maneuvering targets, yielding an overall improvement in the tracking performance.