The maritime surveillance problem

Kilby, Philip and Tobin, Patrick and Luscombe, Ruth and Barry, Steven I. and Hickson, Roslyn (2007) The maritime surveillance problem. Australian and New Zealand Mathematics in Industry Study Group > 24th MISG [Wollongong 5/2/2007 - 9/2/2007].

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Problem Statement

Australia is surrounded by a vast expanse of ocean. Movement of vessels within this area is of great interest to the Australian Government. The responsibility for surveillance - detection and tracking – of ships within this area is shared between Defence and civilian organisations.
The surveillance problem may be reduced to the need to classify (to the level of ship type) all ships within an Area of Interest (AI). The surveillance aircraft flies a pre-planned flight route. The search spacing is pre-briefed and is based on the expected radar detection range for the particular ship type of interest in that scenario. The surveillance aircraft maintains a list of contacts (priority contact list) that need to be flown towards to be classified. The Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) is used to decide in which order these contacts should be addressed.
The surveillance platform must plan to fly to the contacts that have not yet been classified. The pre-briefed waypoints should also be flown to in order. The platform will deviate from the pre-planned flight routes to fly towards contacts that need to be classified. The priority contact list will change as tracks move in and out of radar detection range and as the contacts are classified by the surveillance aircraft.

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