Man and machine in the extraction and use of radar information

Modern primary and secondary radars can potentially provide far more information than can be directly displayed¿or can be absorbed by the user. Hence there is a strong prima facie case for automatic data extraction. Even the filtered information arising from automatic extraction cannot be efficiently used by the unaided human operator. However, the use of a surveillance radar picture in air or sea traffic control or in military tactical control involves a vital element of human appreciation, judgement and policy formulation. Fortunately, the remaining aspects of these tasks can mainly be defined as routine applications of pre-determined doctrine and are largely suited to automatic operation. Hence automation of both data extraction and the routine aspects of data utilization may be required, to free man to make full use of his special talents. If the radar is not mechanically constrained to distribute its power and attention quasi-uniformly over the solid angle covered, considerable gains could be derived from automatically matching the operation of the radar to the data emerging from the equipment. A research and experimental programme has been conducted over some years, aimed at the application of automation to radar data processing and, eventually, the automatic control of the radar´s mode of operation. The paper outlines some of the requirements and problems in matching the man and machine to each other, to their input sources and to the appropriate output systems.