3RD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON TECHNOLOGY - ENGINEERING & SCIENCE - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia (2017-02-09)

Seasonal Variation Of Hf Surface Wave Radar Performance In Malaysian Waters
HF surface wave radars (HFSWR) continue to proliferate in the Asian region, where they are employed (i) as a means to uniquely detailed real-time information on ocean currents and wave conditions, and (ii) as a highly cost-effective technology to detect and track surface vessels in national Exclusive Economic Zones (see eg.[1], [2]). The great majority of these radar systems can be found in South Korea, Japan and China; notably last year Taiwan became the first country to have HFSWR coverage around its entire coastline. In all there are around 150 HFSWR systems presently operating in Asia. Although some limited deployments have taken place in Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, these countries have yet to follow the example of their Northern neighbours by investing in national-scale networks of HFSWR systems. Accordingly, one might ask why this is so, especially given the confluence of economic, geopolitical and law enforcement challenges in the South China Sea and adjacent seas. One explanation for the slow uptake of HFSWR in these countries, despite there being no lack of important national surveillance requirements, may lie in some residual uncertainty as to the likely performance of such systems when addressing the specific tasks assigned to them, and in the particular environments where they might be installed. Such concerns are not without foundation : in a classic case of injudicious system design, one HFSWR which had performed extraordinarily well in one location failed to achieve adequate performance when relocated to another site [3]. Thus a rigorous assessment of expected system performance is a logical prerequisite to system acquisition. In this paper we examine one aspect of such an assessment - the seasonal variability of HFSWR performance caused by the monsoons; we illustrate this effect for hypothetical system configurations and locations in peninsula Malaysia. The specific mission that we use to illustrate the seasonal variation is the monitoring of fishing vessels, on both the East and West coasts. The results show the pronounced effects due to the monsoons, but at the same time, reveal that HFSWR systems are capable of providing effective surveillance within the prime fishing zones.
Stuart Anderson