Optimization of System-of-Systems architectures for maritime border control using genetic algorithms

Engineering solutions to surveillance operations in wide areas are based on the integration of manned aircrafts and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in complex System-of-Systems (SoS) architectures. The selection of one specific architecture depends on a very large set of parameters and constraints related to the surveillance scenario, target statistics and the availability of limited resources such as electro-magnetic spectrum, crew, airfields or simply budgetary restrictions. This paper covers the use of Genetic Algorithms (GA) to obtain the best SoS architecture for a given surveillance scenario and a given set of limited resources.