Reconstruction of Multifunction Radar Search Plan Based on Multiple Sequence Alignment

Multifunction radar (MFR) is a sophisticated sensor which could perform several different functions simultaneously. The problems of deciphering the signals of MFR and inferring the information of its capabilities have posed a great challenge to the Electronic intelligence (ELINT) society. In this paper, we propose a method to reconstruct MFR's search plan from its signals by drawing lessons from the bioinformatics approach "Multiple sequence alignment (MSA)", which is used extensively for gene analysis. In the method, the signal of MFR is represented as a structured task sequence, and is segmented into several blocks according to the inherent periodicity of the search plan. Then, these blocks are aligned optimally to distinguish the tasks relevant to the search function from the others. Simulation results show that the proposed method is applicable and effective.