abstract
HF radar can provide efficient and wide-ranging surveillance of aircraft and surface vehicles at above-the-horizon ranges (hundreds of kilometers in HF surface wave configurations and thousands of kilometers with skywave illumination). In many cases, operational systems regularly provide radar products to users, and both the technology and the underlying science are recognized as mature. Specifically, the standard output from today’s HF radars consists of detecting and tracking platforms that are essentially anonymous, even though advances in radar technology, signal processing, and geophysical models have improved detection probabilities and increased measurement accuracy.
Mere knowledge of the existence of a ship or aircraft is often of limited value. In order to assess any situation and take appropriate action, radar operators require information about the type of vehicle involved, whether it belongs to a known class, and ideally the unique identity of the vehicle and its operation. Are they engaged in illegal activities such as piracy, human trafficking, smuggling of goods and materials, sanctions-breaking, dark fleet transfers, and sovereign threats? Are they exhibiting patterns of movement that suggest hostile intent? Are the commercial interests of other parties being violated? These and many similar questions fall under situational awareness in the broadest sense, a topic of high relevance across Southeast Asia.
The extent to which an HF radar is able to deliver such information depends not only on the radar design, but also on the depth of understanding of the physics involved in a vehicle’s radar signature, as well as the radar’s operating procedures and signal processing architecture to obtain target information. Additionally, an additional layer of signal interpretation powered by artificial intelligence is needed to piece together a complete picture of the maritime domain that provides usable intelligence beyond traditional SURPIC.
This talk will provide an overview of recent developments to address this challenge.
About the speaker
Stuart J. Anderson I received my bachelor’s degree. (First Class Honors) and Ph.D. in Physics (Nuclear Physics) from the University of Western Australia in 1968 and 1972 respectively. As a student, I worked on Australia’s early HF radar program from 1965 to 1967. In 1974, he was invited to join the team being assembled by the Australian Defense Science and Technology Agency to develop the Jindalee Over-the-Horizon Radar (OTHR) system and was responsible for the design and implementation of maritime surveillance and remote sensing capabilities. Between 1982 and 1987, he conducted many pioneering experiments with the Jindalee radar, established the world’s first operational OTHR ship detection capability, and developed a daily offshore wind mapping service that provided data to the Bureau of Meteorology from 1983 to 1995. In the 1980s, he spent one year as a visiting scientist on the U.S. Naval Relocatable OTH Radar (ROTHR) at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. I live in the UK and work on related UK-US joint projects. In 1998-1999, he participated in the OTHR Project Nostradamus in France for several months, followed by extended visits to OTHR research groups in Russia and China. Starting in 1995, he led the DSTO research program in HF surface wave radar and microwave radar polarimetry, in addition to continuing to expand the capabilities of skywave OTH radars through the development of advanced signal processing techniques and new physics. Stuart left DSTO in 2014 to take up a position as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Adelaide, at the same time as Professor Emeritus at University College London. He maintains a busy international travel schedule, attending conferences, collaborating with researchers at universities and other institutions, and consulting with government agencies in Europe and other countries. Stuart received the 1992 Australian Defense Science Minister’s Award for Research Achievement, among several other awards and awards. In 2005, the University of Rennes I, France, awarded him a degree. Reason for honorary doctorate For contributions to radar science. Currently, his active research interests include electromagnetism, oceanography, radio wave propagation, ionospheric physics, signal processing, inverse problems, artificial intelligence, and nonlinear optimization, especially topics related to HF radar. Stuart also maintains a deep and up-to-date knowledge of the history of HF radar development and its defense implications around the world. He has published over 350 journal articles, conference papers, books, book chapters, and reports in these areas, and is the lead author of the chapter on OTH radar in the authoritative Radar Handbook.