A Load Balancing Surveillance
Algorithm For Multifunctional
Radar Resource Management
Tobias Müller, Pascal Marquardt and Stefan Brüggenwirth
Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques
arXiv:1902.05730v1 [eess.SP] 15 Feb 2019
Wachtberg, GERMANY
email: tobias.mueller@fhr.fraunhofer.de
February 18, 2019
This paper is a preprint of a paper accepted by Interna-
tional Radar Symposium (IRS) 2019.
For all multifunctional radar systems the alloca-
tion of resources plays an outstanding role. Many
radars have low priority on surveillance tasks. In
challenging situations this leads to neglecting of surveil-
lance beams in directions where many other tasks are
done. This document presents a technique that en-
ables multifunctional radar systems to keep on scan-
ning overloaded surveillance sectors under the condi-
tion that all sectors have a similar revisit time. Since
radar resource management depends on the used sys-
tem, two general configurations are considered in this
paper. The focus lies on systems with a rotating an-
tenna.
1 Introduction
Multifunctional radar systems (MFR) offer many opportuni-
ties to adapt to the scene. This leads to the challenging task
of dynamically allocating resources for different tasks such
as surveillance, tracking, classification or imaging in chang-
ing environments. Due to the growing demands modern
radar systems have to meet, the scheduling of surveillance
tasks is treated not very much. The reason for this is that
often a low priority is given to these tasks which leads to
fluctuating revisit times. The left picture of Figure 1 de-
picts a generic scheduling system. This uses queues with
priorities to decide in which order tasks have to be done.
The result is written into the execution queue.
This work examines the problem for surveillance re-
source allocation with a focus on rotating antenna systems.
Since the radar system is occupied unbalanced over the area,
the goal is to reach a balanced surveillance even if the avail-
able resources are unbalanced. Many publications consider
a scheduling system for all radar tasks together [1],[2],[3]
or even include prior knowledge [4]. Investigations with fo-
cus on rotating systems are sparsely given [5], [6]. Since in
many cases surveillance is given the lowest priority, highly
occupied regions either lack in surveillance revisit time
or are updated far away from broadside. This generally
increases beam steering losses. Modern algorithms that
handle this, e.g. Quality of Service [7],[8], require high
computational effort and an upgrade for existing systems
might be complicated.
The method presented in the following is computation-
ally fast and gives the opportunity to upgrade existing sys-
tems because of its flexible setup. The result can be in-
terpreted as a more efficient way to order the tasks within
the surveillance queue than just sorting them by their dead-
lines (earliest deadline first [9]). It is based on dividing the
surveillance space into sectors along the rotation direction.
These are then interpreted as bins similar to the well known
bin packing problem [10], which is NP-hard. Additionally
only bins near broadside can be used to execute a surveil-
lance task to fulfil the field of view (FOV) condition (Figure
1). This can be set smaller than the maximum possible FOV
to reduce the beam steering losses.
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. In
section 2 the problem is defined for the case that the avail-
able resources are known apriori. Afterwards in section
3 the NP-hardness of the problem is shown. Section 4
describes the algorithm and in section 5 the results are pre-
sented and compared to an optimal solution. In section
6 the assumptions on the problem are relaxed. Section 7
concludes the paper and gives an outlook on future work.
 A Load Balancing Surveillance Algorithm For Multifunctional Radar Resource Management

the main sector m(t) = b ϕ(t) 2π N c. Additionally the field of

view is restricted, this is here represented by a fixed number
of sectors n ∈ N that the radar can look aside to. Therefore
the set of active sectors is defined as
Rotation
Antenna Fi := {j ∈ N | j = (m(i∆t) + c) mod N, |c| ≤ n}.
(3)

A Task T is defined as a triple (L, DL , i) ∈ L × DL × N

where the last element gives the main sector at execution
time by m(i∆t). The components of a Task T are refer-
enced by T1 , T2 , T3 . The set
FOV
Main Sector Ti := {T | T3 ≤ i} (4)
5. Special Measurements Execution t
.. contains all tasks executed within t, i.e. b ∆t c ≤ i.
.
ϕ
dM1 in s
Az
im
ut

... M1 This leads to the following optimisation problem:

n
io

t in s
at
ev

θ
El

4. Track Maintenance
t in s

dT3 in s
T3

dT4 in s
ϕ
dT2 in s
ϕ minimise t
Az

Az
im

im
ut

ut

... T4 T2 S
Az
El θ
ev

im

subject to
at

ut
n

io
io

io

t in s t in s
n
at

at
ev

ev

θ θ
El

El

Task c
t in s

dT4 in s
T4

Execution Queue

Generator 3. Track Initialisation h

d∗ in s
ϕ
dT7 in s
ϕ
dT3 in s
ϕ e ∀L ∈ L, ∃T ∈ Ti : T1 = L,
Az

Az

Az

(5)
Az ϕ
El θ
im

im

im

ev

im

∗
ut

ut

ut

at

T7 T3
ut

...
io

d
n

∀T ∈ Ti : m(T3 ∆t) ∈ FT3 ,

t in s

dT2 in s
T2

u
n

n
io

io

io

t in s t in s t in s
at

at

at
ev

ev

ev

θ θ θ
El

El

El

l
Az
El θ
ev

im
at

ut

2. Track Update
io

ϕ
n

e
X
T2 < Rm(i∆t) ∀i ∈ N with i∆t < t.
t in s

dM1 in s
M1

r
ϕ ϕ ϕ ϕ
dT8 in s dT6 in s dT5 in s dT1 in s
Az

Az

Az

Az
im

im

im

im
ut

ut

ut

ut

... T8 T6 T5 T1
T ∈Ti \Ti−1
n

n
io

io

io

io

t in s t in s t in s t in s
at

at

at

at
ev

ev

ev

ev

θ θ θ θ
El

El

El

El

1. Surveillance
dS3 in s
ϕ
dS2 in s
ϕ
dS1 in s
ϕ

The first condition enforces that no direction in L is ne-

Az

Az

Az
im

im

im
ut

ut

ut

... S3 S2 S1
n

n
io

io

io

Az

t in s t in s t in s

glected. The second condition enforces for all tasks to be

El θ
at

at

at

ev

im
ev

ev

ev

θ θ θ
at

ut
El

El

El

io

ϕ
n

Feedback executed within the field of view. The third condition in-
Rx Tx corporates the resource restrictions for every sector. The
term T ∈ Ti \ Ti−1 means that only tasks that are executed
Figure 1: Generic scheduling scheme on the lower and schematic within the same rotation are considered. The calculation of
illustration of the field of view on the upper side. the current main sector m(T3 ∆t) = i depends on the time
stamp of execution of the task T .
Since the focus is set to rotating antennas, this optimi-
2 Problem definition sation problem can be read as minimising the number of
rotations that are necessary to update all surveillance beam
The surveillance volume of a radar can be described in
pointing directions. It is important to see that the available
spherical coordinates. It can be discretised in azimuth and
resources per sector are decoupled from the mechanical
elevation given by (ϕ, θ) ∈ [0, 2π) × [−π, π]. The set of
rotation time since ∆t only gives a physical upper bound
all directions where a surveillance beam shall be pointed is
for the available time. Another option is to adapt the rota-
denoted by
tion rate in a next step. Relaxing the fixed resources per
L ⊂ ([0, 2π) × [−π, π]) and DL : L → R , (1) sector is done in a later section. In the next section the
NP-hardness of this problem will be proven.
where DL denotes the duration that every surveillance beam
consumes. Let N ∈ N be a given number of surveillance
sectors. This leads to the following partition of the search 3 NP-Hardness
volume:
n ϕ o The NP-hardness of Problem (5) follows easily from a
Li := (ϕ, θ) ∈ L | b N c = i (2) reduction to the bin packing problem [10]. To solve bin
2π
packing with (5) the field of view can be set to N such that
with Li ∩ Lj = ∅, i 6= j, 0 ≤ i, j < N .
any task can be executed on any sector. Additionally only
In the first step the assumption is that the surveillance results for t < ∆tN are accepted. This leads to
resources Ri ∈ R for every sector are known and fixed but
arbitrary. minimize t
The mechanical rotation of the antenna is considered as subject to ∀L ∈ L, ∃T ∈ TN ∆t : T1 = L,
(6)
constant with rotation time ∆t per sector such that a com-
X
∀0 ≤ i < N : T2 ≤ Ri .
plete rotation needs N ∆t. W.l.o.g. the angular position T ∈Ti
starts with zero such that the position of the antenna can
be written as ϕ(t) = t N2π ∆t . This position is related to This is already the bin packing problem.

Page 2 of 6
 A Load Balancing Surveillance Algorithm For Multifunctional Radar Resource Management

Task durations
500 Data: given N, R, D, n
Result: A partition Bi on all surveillance tasks.
450
calculate riopt ;
400 E = ∅;
350 for i ← 1 to N do
L̃ = Li \ E ;
300
Choose P1 maximal in relation to L̃ on sector i
Duration

250
with a greedy approach;
200 Calculate the sectors in field of view:
150 F = [i − n, . . . , i + n] mod N ;
100
L̃ = LF \ E ;
Choose P2 ⊃ P1 maximal in relation to L̃ on
50
sector i with a greedy approach;
0 B i = P2 ;
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Sector index E = E ∪ Bi ;
Comparision to trivial solution end
500
Improved solution Distribute not used beam pointing directions:
450 Ressources
trivial solution
while L ∈ L \ E do
400 Set i such that L ∈ Li ;
350
F = [i − n, . . . , i + n] mod N ;
d˜+
P
d
Resource load

d∈Bj
300
m = arg min rjopt ;
j∈F
250
Bm = Bm ∪ L ;
200
E = E ∪ L;
150 end
100
Algorithm 1: Surveillance scheduling algorithm

50

0
1 2 3 4 5 6
Sector index
Figure 2: This example shows on the left how the different sectors
are occupied, where the stacked elements indicate the
durations of each surveillance update. On the right
the occupancy after equalisation in comparison to the
given resources is depicted.
4 Algorithm description
Since the problem is NP-hard a simplified solution is pre-
sented. This is based on a greedy design and starts with a
continuous calculation which makes the problem easy to
solve because any portion of a task would be executable.
In the next step the continuous solution is rounded off to
a discrete guess. Therefore define the continuous optimal
criteria:
P and
d X
d∈D
ropt := P L (7)
Ri
i
This fraction is the absolute time demand to update all
surveillance directions in relation to the total resources
available per rotation. ropt can be used to get the optimal
resource distribution per sector
riopt := ropt Ri .
Algorithm 1 generates a mapping from every sector to
7 8 9 10 11 12 the beam pointing directions or rather their time demand.
Figure 2 shows an example input and output of the algo-
rithm. On the left side the update durations and their sector
membership by position are shown. On the right side the
available resources per rotation, and the equalised solu-
tion against the trivial solution which is just executing the
task on broadside are drawn. In sector 5 one can see the
advantage in this equalisation effect.
In words the algorithm chooses a maximal subset of L for
every sector for which the resource allocation is lower than
the optimal value riopt . Maximal in this case means that
there is no task in the given set of tasks that can be added
without exceeding the threshold. So the set P ⊂ L̃ ⊂ L is
maximal in relation to the set L̃ on sector i iff:
X
d0 + d > riopt , ∀d0 ∈ DL̃\P (9)
d∈DP
d ≤ riopt . (10)
d∈DP
After that is done for all sectors there usually will be some
unassociated tasks. They are associated to that sectors,
where the violation of the threshold riopt is minimal in a
relative manner.
The set E is a storage for all executed tasks. The refer-
ence riopt is used to decide how much load a sector should
(8) handle.

Page 3 of 6
 A Load Balancing Surveillance Algorithm For Multifunctional Radar Resource Management

Task durations
The partition produced by the algorithm now defines 450
what surveillance tasks have to be executed depending on
400
the current main sector. At this point the rotation rate is
considered which is not used to generate the scheme itself. 350
The decision which task will be executed next within the
300
main sector, is then done by comparing the time of last
illumination, for all L ∈ Bi .

Duration
250

200

5 Results 150

To test the proposed algorithm, a random input is gener- 100

ated. The results are compared to the resource distribution 50

without equilibration and to the optimal solution riopt .
Figure 3 shows an example input with 30 sectors and a 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
field of view of 11 sectors (n = 5) which is about 130◦ . Sector index
This is a realistic standard scenario for many cases. The Sector based resources
200
upper shows the update directions and their durations. The
180
lower shows the available resources per sector. The output
is shown in Figure 4 where the upper shows which tasks 160
are executed within their sector and which were used for Available resources 140
equalisation. In sector 30 all own tasks are executed by
other sectors such that only tasks from neighbouring sectors 120

are left. The reason for this is that the equalisation spreads 100
the resources on all sectors such that there is no task left
80
in FOV for this sector to associate. An additional shifting
step would be necessary to overcome this problem. Since 60

this is an underload case, the worst case revisit time is not 40

directly increased. The overall performance and the optimal
continuous solution are similar, which can be seen in the
lower graph of Figure 4. This relative load can be read
as the number of rotations needed to completely update L.
In this case it is about 2.3 rotations since the worst case
sector is decisive. If the rotation rate is adjustable it can be
decreased to match a lower worst case value or increased
to match a higher worst case value.
If this is not possible the SNR guarantee in every update
step can be increased by decreasing the field of view. Figure
5 shows the same experiment as before but with a field of
view of 3 sectors (n = 1) which is about 36◦ . As expected
the resulting performance decreases a bit. The advantage
is, that the steering losses decrease as well. This leads
to a simple method in either adapting the rotation rate to
the available performances or adapting the usage of the
resources to the rotation rate.
6 Algorithm with other schedul-
ing requirements
In many cases the radar resource management does the
resource allocation for the surveillance tasks dynamically.
This contradicts to the assumption that this is an input pa-
rameter for the algorithm. For dynamic allocation, as it
is done for instance by a priority-based scheduler [6], the
allocation is measured over time. Under the assumption
that the allocation does not change drastically the result
of the proposed algorithm still can give a usable scheme.
The disadvantage is that it depends on the worst guess. If
20
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Sector index
Figure 3: This experiment shows how the different sectors are
occupied by the durations of their tasks (upper) and
their resources (lower). The field of view is defined by
n = 5.
for a sector the available resource was estimated two times
the actual available resource the revisit time will be ap-
proximately two times worse than estimated. An additional
online algorithm for fast adaptation will be presented in the
future.
7 Conclusion and further work
In this paper a simple surveillance algorithm for multifunc-
tional radar systems that equalises the revisit time of surveil-
lance tasks for all beam pointing directions is presented.
The goal was to decouple resources and their correspond-
ing revisit times per sector. To achieve this, a sector which
has resources above the average, can support other sectors
that are occupied with other tasks such as track updates or
classification measurements. An additional advantage is
the fast computability due to greedy approaches. An easy
adaptation to existing scheduling schemes is possible such
that even existing radar systems could be upgraded.
In the future the adaptation due to sudden and drastic

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 A Load Balancing Surveillance Algorithm For Multifunctional Radar Resource Management

Visualise the equalising part Visualise the equalising part

450 450
Own Duration Own Duration
400 Neighbour Dur. 400 Neighbour Dur.

350 350

300 300
Resource load

Resource load
250 250

200 200

150 150

100 100

50 50

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Sector index Sector index
Relative resource load Relative resource load
2.5 3

2.5
2

2
Relative duration

Relative duration

1.5

1.5

1
1

0.5
0.5

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Sector index Sector index

Figure 4: These graphs represent the result of the algorithm for
the input shown in Figure 3. The upper shows the
result after equalisation. The portion of tasks that are
executed on broadside are compared to those tasks that
are executed away from broadside. The lower shows
the attained relative load on each sector.
changes in the environment will be improved. This may
be done by intelligent sorting of the update tasks within
each sector. It was mentioned that the rotation rate can be
adapted to the dynamic surveillance scheme. In a next step
a realistic optimising condition for this will be investigated
as well. Additionally a comparison to earliest deadline first
will be conducted.
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