Radar Optimal Times Detection Allocation in Multitarget Environment

This paper deals with the problem of the management of electronically steered antenna (ESA) in multitarget environments. Radars are used to detect, locate and identify targets. In this paper we focus on the detection of several aerial targets in a fixed given time. The difficulty of such detection lies in the fact that targets may be located anywhere in the space, but radars can only observe a limited part of it at a time. As a result, it is necessary to change their axis position over time. This paper describes the main steps to derive an optimal radar management in this context: the modeling of the radar, the determination of a criterion based on the target detection probability and the temporal optimization process leading to sensor management strategy. An optimization solution is presented for several contexts and several hypotheses about prior knowledge concerning the targets' locations. First, we propose a method for the optimization of the radar detection probability in a single target environment. It consists in the decomposition of the detection step into an optimal number of independent elementary detections. Then, in a multitarget context with deterministic prior knowledge, we present an optimal time allocation method which is based on the results of non linear programming. finally, in a multitarget context with probabilistic prior knowledge, results in search theory are used to determine an optimal temporal allocation.