Optimal Sensor Configurations for Rectangular Target Dectection

TL;DR

This paper develops optimal search strategies for detecting rectangular symmetric targets with unknown orientations, using symmetry principles to derive analytically optimal angle configurations that maximize detection probability.

Contribution

It introduces a symmetry-based approach to determine optimal sensor angles for detecting rectangular targets without prior orientation knowledge.

Findings

Optimal angles are evenly spaced on the half-circle.

The strategy provides a lower bound on non-detection probability.

The approach is robust and analytically derived.

Abstract

Optimal search strategies where targets are observed at several different angles are found. Targets are assumed to exhibit rectangular symmetry and have a uniformly-distributed orientation. By rectangular symmetry, it is meant that one side of a target is the mirror image of its opposite side. Finding an optimal solution is generally a hard problem. Fortunately, symmetry principles allow analytical and intuitive solutions to be found. One such optimal search strategy consists of choosing n angles evenly separated on the half-circle and leads to a lower bound of the probability of not detecting targets. As no prior knowledge of the target orientation is required, such search strategies are also robust, a desirable feature in search and detection missions.