Optimal Deployment Analysis of Airborne Radars Detecting Stealth Target Using UAV
Swarms
Weijia Wang, Peng Bai, Xiaolong Liang
*
, Jiaqiang Zhang, Liping Hu
National Key Laboratory of Air Traffic Collision Prevention,
Air Force Engineering University, P.R.China
Xi’an, China
afeu_lxl@sina.com
Abstract—Radar deployment is of great importance for
airborne radar network performance. An efficient deployment
required a good detection performance and energy consumption.
This paper focuses on the detection of directional stealth target
using UAV swarms equipped with active and passive radars.
Based on calculated bistatic radar cross section (RCS) of stealth
targets and Cassini oval sensing region, the optimum geometrical
structures are analyzed with bistatic radars (BRs) using multiple
mobile adaptive forward receivers to extend the dynamic
detection range and coverage. Multi-objective optimization
model is introduced and many critical constraints have been
identified. Grid partition method and wolf pack algorithm (WPA)
are applied to search the optimal deployments. In particular, we
consider the problem of deploying an airborne network of BRs in
the surveillance region to maximize the worst-case intrusion
detectability as well as the vulnerability of active radar. Our
findings provide valuable and practical insights into deployment
of UAVs for stealth target tracking and the efficiency of the
proposed algorithm is also validated by our simulation results.
Keywords—radar deployment; stealth target; bistatic radars;
multi-objective optimization; wolf pack algorithm
I. INTRODUCTION
There has been increasing interest in netted radar systems
in recent years as its effective range and coverage as well as
detection of low RCS targets. A common problem of netted
radar system is the earlier detection of stealth target with radars
deployed in different geometries [1].
Passive radar (PR) receiver is an effective way to fill the
blind regions in netted radar systems. A new research area for
passive radar concept is the application of this theory to
airborne platforms. Theoretical analysis presented in open
publications suggests that it is viable to apply to mobile
platforms [2]. The developments of passive coherent location
(PCL) system have prompted to moving platform which bring
a very promising solution for military application. The main
advantage is the potential ability to detect targets at long ranges,
including stealth targets with low radar cross section (RCS).
Additionally, the characteristic of low cost nature and the light
weight of PCL systems make it suitable to be installed in UAV
platform [3].
Several researchers aim at improving the location and
detection performance by airborne PCL system based on
location technologies such as time of arrival (TOA), time
difference of arrival (TDOA), angle of arrival (AOA) [4],which
include the tracking and measurements association algorithm in
different situations. Then ,the Angle Rule and Coordinate Rule
are applied to optimal UAVs deployment for angle and
position estimate, respectively [5].This optimal deployment is
still independent of individual platform geometries and
equivalent to minimizations of PCRLB.
However, as for stealth target detection, the RCS varies
with different directions and many factors (i.e. target geometry,
shape, size) that need to be taken into considerations [6]. A
comprehensive work of stealth target detection based on
predicting the real RCS of target and TDOA technique is
studied in balloon-borne platform with per-defined deployment
of platforms [7]. Radar deployment is of great importance for
netted radars performance. Traditional deployment of radars is
mainly for ground based netted system which had been studied
for many years. Mageid and Ramadan [8] investigated the
coverage problems to deploy WSNs. Gogu et al. Paper [9]
determined the optimal radar node densities for target detection.
Liang [10] proposed Hexagonal Deployment Strategy (HDS)
and Diamond Deployment Strategy (DDS) to achieve a higher
expected detection probability. However, these deployments
cannot be applied to airborne platform directly. K.Woodbridge
[11] firstly examined the effect of the main radar and target
parameters on the range, coverage and location accuracy of a
mobile bistatic radar system.
In this paper, we investigate the deployment of UAVs
equipped with active and passive radars to achieve a better
performance of stealth target detection. Having passive radar
systems will improve EW capabilities of the airborne platform
against threaten of stealth target, as the passive radar system
has no electromagnetic emission. As the correct location of
multiple transmitting and receiving stations will enable the
geometry of the netted radar to meet the needs of specific
requirements, we focus on the problem of deploying a network
of airborne bistatic radars (BRs) for stealth targets detection.
Based on calculated bistatic radar cross section (RCS) of
stealth targets and Cassini oval sensing region, the optimal
deployments are analyzed with a BR using multiple mobile
adaptive forward receivers to extend the dynamic detection
range and coverage. Since the establishment of optimal
deployment can be translated to an optimization problem, we
propose the WPA to reduce the computational load. In
particular, the deployment strategy is used to ensure that targets
in the surveillance region can be detected early and to achieve
the optimal coverage quality with many practical constraints
while avoiding detection and tracking by enemy sensors.
1617
2018 IEEE/CSAA Guidance, Navi
ation and Control Conference
u
ust 10-12, 2018 Xiamen, China
978-1-5386-1171-5/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE