Key system issues in real-time radar management

Over the past two to three decades one has seen an increasing flexibility of radars, resulting from new techniques and system architectures. Although this particularly applies to the detection and tracking of air targets (aircraft, missiles, re-entry bodies, artillery shells etc) the statement is also true for surface target detection. The new techniques and system architectures include flexible, driven transmitters, electronically-scanned (inertialess) antennas and programmable signal generation and processing. However this intrinsic flexibility is only achieved with a complexity penalty and, frequently, with a cost penalty. Therefore, technically exciting as phased array radars, for example, might be, they cannot be justified unless this flexibility can be exploited as an overall system benefit. Some of these issues are considered and, most importantly, how real-time management and adaption can be implemented to exploit these benefits