Synthesizing task periods for dwells in multi-function phased array radars

This paper addresses the problem of scheduling radar dwells in multi-function phased array radar systems. The timing constraint of radar tasks are usually modeled by the minimal and maximal temporal distance between any two consecutive dwells of a task. Such a timing constraint makes it difficult for traditional real-time scheduling techniques to provide predicatable timing guarantee, without over-consuming the resources. We propose a novel approach to model the dwells as periodic real-time tasks. The periods of the tasks are synthesized by the minimal and maximal temporal distance constraint of the dwells. The synthetic periods allow the template-based scheduling algorithm to compute efficient dwell schedules with low overhead. We evaluate the algorithms via extensive simulations. Simulation results show that this algorithm can significantly improve the resource utilization, comparing with traditional dwell scheduling algorithms.