TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Sensors, Electronics, Battlespace

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA-265 F/A-18 Hornet; Joint Strike Fighter, ACAT I

OBJECTIVE: Develop innovative highly-adaptive radar resource scheduling algorithms to support optimal multifunction operation of Naval airborne active electronically scanned array (AESA) based radar systems in a variety of operational situations/scenarios. A key component of these algorithms is to adequately capture radar timeline, energy and computational constraints while optimizing system performance against representative target sets and mission tasking in the operational environment.

DESCRIPTION: Modern AESA-based radar systems are theoretically able to near-instantaneously and adaptively position and control their array beam to support concurrent multiple target tracking in air-to-air and air-to-ground modes as well as interleave other modes such as SAR and GMTI. Optimally adapting the system operating parameters according to present tasking and how they perceive the operational environment is needed. The scheduling of these tasks has traditionally employed a combination of conservative heuristics, table lookups, and/or operator intuition. A variety of more advanced approaches have been investigated including use of neural networks, artificial intelligence, operations research theory, fuzzy logic and particle swarm algorithms. In general these investigations have focused on the optimization of resources in surveillance and multiple maneuvering target tracking modes. A comprehensive treatment is needed that addresses the complete set of radar modes including ways to optimally nest multiple interleaving modes. The desire is to develop algorithms that provide responsive scheduling of prioritized tasks within the system time and energy budget constraints so as to maximize the probability of detection and minimizing time, energy usage and probability of false alarms even in adverse propagation, clutter or jamming conditions.

PHASE I: Develop a detailed description of the proposed resource scheduling algorithm set as applied to a Naval tactical airborne AESA based radar system. The description must address the functional capability of candidate radar systems as installed on tactical aircraft, resource scheduling logic and optimization methods to be employed by the radar. An initial performance assessment should be made using a set of operational scenarios of interest to the Naval TACAIR community. The operational scenarios should capture host platform characteristics and mission objectives, target types and their kinematics, target density, clutter return, jamming environment and the presence of discrete unintentional interfering sources.

PHASE II: Develop and refine the resource scheduling system as applied to a specific radar system of interest. Whenever possible evaluate the prototype scheduling system�s performance by comparing to existing models to sponsor provided test data.

PHASE III: Working with radar system OEMs transition the AESA resource management tools to the Fleet.

PRIVATE SECTOR USE OF TECHNOLOGY: Integrated resource management and scheduling with multiple constraints finds application in a wide range of civilian communication systems. The general models developed under this SBIR could be modified to support these civilian applications.

REFERENCES:
1. Miranda, S.L.C., C.J. Baker, K. Woodbridge and H.D. Griffiths, Phased Array Radar Resource Management: A Comparison of Scheduling Algorithms, Radar Conference, 2004. Proceedings of the IEEE, 26-29 April 2004, pp.79 - 84

2. Hansen, J.P., S. Ghosh, R. Rajkumar and J. Lehoczky, Resource Management of Highly Config-urable Tasks, Proceedings of the 18th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium 26-30 April 2004, pp.116

3. Watson, R. Radar Resource Management Modeling, RADAR 2002, 15-17 Oct. 2002, pp.562 - 566

4. Lee, C.-G., A Novel Framework for Quality-Aware Resource Management in Phased Array Ra-dar Systems, Proceedings of the 11th IEEE Real Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 7-10 March 2005, pp.322 - 331

KEYWORDS: Phased Array Radar; Resource Management; Modeling and Simulation; Operational Scenarios; Multifunction Radar; Radar Timeline

TPOC: (301)342-2637
2nd TPOC: (301)757-7618

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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