An Optimization Model and Tabu Search Heuristic for Scheduling of Tasks on a Radar Sensor

Abstract

A radar task is an event on the radar timeline that is used to sense a new target or update the information about a previously detected target. A radar sensor performs a variety of different tasks that need to be completed before a certain time horizon. The efficient utilization of the radar timeline is thus a critical issue in the operation of modern radar systems. This paper develops a generalized framework for the radar task scheduling problem in order to allow for scheduling flexibility and the ability to handle multiple tasks using a single radar. An exact optimization model to schedule the tasks and a computationally efficient tabu search heuristic scheduling method are proposed. The full structure of the radar task is explicitly considered in a way that prevents collision of subtasks while naturally performing interleaving of subtasks in order to make more efficient use of the radar timeline. The optimization model and the heuristic method are constructed in a flexible manner in order to easily accommodate various system and scenario specific constraints. Computational results are presented to assess the behavior of the proposed method.