Abstract

HF radar can provide efficient, wide-area surveillance of air and surface vehicles at over-the-horizon ranges – hundreds of kilometres with HF surface wave configurations and thousands of kilometres with skywave illumination. In many cases, both the technology and the underlying science are perceived as mature, with operational systems routinely delivering radar products to users. Specifically, the standard output from today’s HF radars consists of detections and tracks of platforms that are, essentially anonymous, despite advances in radar technology, signal processing and geophysical models that have increased probability of detection and improved measurement accuracy.

It is often the case that knowing the mere presence of a ship or aircraft has limited value. To assess any situation and take appropriate action, the radar operator needs information on the types of vehicles involved, whether they belong to known classes, and, ideally, their unique identities and what they are doing. Are they engaged in illegal activities such as piracy, people trafficking, smuggling of goods or materials, sanction-breaking, black fleet transfers, sovereignty intimidation and so on? Do they exhibit patterns of movement that suggest hostile intent? Are the commercial interests of other parties being compromised? These and many similar questions fall under the broad definition of situational awareness, and this is a subject of high relevance across the waters of SE Asia.

The extent to which an HF radar can deliver such information depends not only on radar design but also on the depth of understanding of the physics responsible for the vehicle radar signatures, together with radar operating procedures and signal processing architectures that retrieve the target information. In addition, extra layers of signal interpretation, aided by artificial intelligence, are needed to piece together a maritime domain picture that provides usable intelligence beyond the traditional SURPIC.

This talk will present an overview of some recent developments that are addressing this challenge.

About the Speaker

Stuart J. Anderson received the B.Sc. (1st Class Honours) and Ph.D. (atomic physics) degrees in physics from the University of Western Australia in 1968 and 1972 respectively. As a student, he worked on the early Australian HF radar program in 1965-67. In 1974, he was invited to join the team being assembled in the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organization to develop the Jindalee over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) system, where he assumed responsibility for designing and implementing the ocean surveillance and remote sensing capabilities. Between 1982 and 1987 he conducted many pioneering experiments with the Jindalee radar, establishing the world’s first operational OTHR ship detection capability and developing a daily oceanic wind mapping service which provided data to the Bureau of Meteorology from 1983 until 1995. In the 1980’s he spent a year at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, working as a visiting scientist on the US Navy Relocatable OTH Radar (ROTHR), and another year in the UK working on a related joint UK-US project. In 1998-99 he spent some months on attachment to the French OTHR project Nostradamus, and subsequently made extended visits to OTHR research groups in Russia and China. From 1995 he led the DSTO research programs in HF surface wave radar and in microwave radar polarimetry, in addition to continuing to extend the capabilities of skywave OTH radar through the development of advanced signal processing techniques and novel physics. Stuart retired from DSTO in 2014, taking up a position as Adjunct Professor in the Physics Department at the University of Adelaide, along with an appointment as Honorary Professor at University College London. He maintains a crowded overseas travel agenda, attending conferences, collaborating with researchers in universities and other institutions, and consulting to government agencies in Europe and elsewhere. Stuart was the recipient of the 1992 Australian Minister of Defence Science Award for Research Achievement, along with several other prizes and awards. In 2005 the Université Rennes I, France, awarded him the degree doctor honoris causa for his contributions to radar science. His active research interests today include topics in electromagnetics, oceanography, radio wave propagation, ionospheric physics, signal processing, inverse problems, artificial intelligence and nonlinear optimization, especially as they relate to HF radar. Stuart also maintains a deep, up-to-date knowledge of the history of HF radar development around the world and its implications for defence. He has published over 350 journal papers, conference papers, books, book chapters, and reports in these fields, and is the principal author of the chapter on OTH radar in the authoritative Radar Handbook.