Abstract :
This paper summarises a study undertaken as a segment of an MOD Corporate Research Programme project run by the then-named DERA. A multi function radar (MFR) offers great opportunity to vary radar parameters, waveforms and signal processing, in real time, in response to the environment and the required performance, in order to optimise the use of energy and time. Many experts in the field of radar take a view that this optimisation process is extraordinarily challenging because there are many, inter-related parameters that can be varied. This study postulates that such a view might be overly pessimistic and that performance is relatively insensitive to many of the parameters so that "fine tuning" is unnecessary. We set out, therefore, to determine which parameters are the most rewarding ones to adjust on a continuous basis. Having determined these, we attempted to define rules of thumb or empirical relationships that could be employed as simple system rules. It was, therefore, a pragmatic, systems engineers\´ approach to solving a potentially complex problem.
