Power density and threshold control strategies for radar track initiation

This report describes a strategy for controlling the power density and thresholds on a pulse-to-pulse basis on long range surveillance radars having fixed power aperture products for the purpose of improving a target track initiation range. By using a mathematical model and Monte-Carlo simulations, it was found that the track initiation range could be significantly increased for the specific cases studied. The improvements varied from about 20% to 50% depending on the strategies and conditions. An argument was constructed that showed that these improved track initiation ranges were obtained without significant degradation in radar performance for other targets as long as the target density was not too large.