Computer/radar joint scheduling using a parallel computer

Abstract

During the past several years, parallel computation, parallel processing as well as parallel algorithms have attracted growing attention as promising avenues of decreasing computation time at the same time increasing CPU utilization. In this paper, computer/radar joint scheduling using a parallel computer is investigated.The Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) computer/radar joint scheduling problem is to order the radar and computer tasks that coordinate the sending out and receiving of search, verify, track, discrimination, range ambiguity and interceptor guidance and track pulses.The objective of computer/radar joint scheduling is threefold:To meet all the constraints which may be classified into:radar operationBMDcomputer operationradar/computer integrationTo maintain or gradually degrade track and search rates according to a search/track degrade ratio as specified by the resource allocator.To achieve a high radar scheduling efficiency (high radar duty factor) for both normal and overload conditions.The radar pulse scheduling algorithms may be classified into three groups:non-overlappedrange orderednon-range ordered.Furthermore, nested radar pulse scheduling algorithms and interlaced radar pulse scheduling algorithms may be applied to both range ordered radar pulses as well as non-range ordered radar pulses. In addition, it is interesting to note that an interlaced radar segment resembles a first in first out (FIFO) queue, while a nested radar segment resembles a first in last out (FILO) queue.Consecutive reception interlaced radar scheduling algorithms as well as consecutive transmission interlaced radar scheduling algorithms for both range ordered and non-range ordered pulses are presented and illustrated by examples.In addition, pulse pair scheduling algorithms are also presented with illustrative examples. Furthermore, radars with multiple receivers are also considered. Various search pulse scheduling algorithms are also presented. The concept of a virtual time is introduced for scheduling track pulses in order to meet or gradually degrade track and search rates.Before the radar sends out a radar pulse, the computer performs a target extrapolation task. After the computer receives the radar return, the computer performs a target up-date task. Through the use of a parallel computer, the number of targets that can be tracked may be increased, and the tracking rate may also be increased. Various computer/radar joint scheduling algorithms using a parallel computer are presented and illustrated by examples.