Optimizing HF Radar Siting for Surveillance and Remote Sensing in the Strait of Malacca

The deployment of a network of HF surface wave radar (HFSWR) systems is a complex task with many factors to be considered, particularly when the radars are expected to perform multiple roles. Failure to treat the siting problem with appropriate care could seriously degrade performance in one or more radar missions. In this paper, we describe a practical technique for HFSWR network design, based on a genetic algorithm adapted to multi-objective optimization, and demonstrate its efficacy in the context of a hypothetical two-radar system deployed in the Strait of Malacca, a major waterway along which many critical surveillance requirements have been identified. The results confirm that quite disparate criteria can be taken into account with this approach and support our claim that this methodology can be extended to higher dimensions where exhaustive search is completely out of the question.