In this study, the Artificial Bee Colony Optimization (ABCO) algorithm has been proposed to estimate the atmospheric duct in maritime environment. The radar sea clutter power is calculated by the parabolic equation method. In order to validate the accuracy and robustness of ABCO algorithm, the experimental and simulation study are respectively carried out in the current research. In the simulation study, the statistical analysis of the estimation results in term of the mean squared error (MSE), mean absolute deviation (MAD) and mean relative error (MRE) are presented to analyze the optimization performance with different noise standard deviation, and the comparative study of the performance of ABCO and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm are also shown. The investigation presented indicate that the ABCO algorithm can be accurately and effectively utilized to estimate the evaporation duct and surface-based duct using refractivity from clutter (RFC) technique in maritime environment. In addition, the performance of ABCO algorithm is clearly superior to that of the PSO algorithm according to the statistical analysis results, especially for the four-parameter surface-based duct estimation.
2. Yardim, , C., , P. Gerstoft, and W. S. Hodgkiss, "Tracking refractivity from clutter using kalman and particle filters," IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propag., Vol. 56, No. 4, 1058-1070, 2008.
doi:10.1109/TAP.2008.919205
3. Yardim, , C., P. Gerstoft, and W. S. Hodgkiss, "Statistical maritime radar duct estimation using a hybrid genetic algorithms --- Markov chain Monte Carlo method," Radio Sci., , Vol. 42-RS3014, 2007.
4. Gerstoft, , P., , L. T. Rogers, J. L. Krolik, and W. S. Hodgkiss, "Inversion for refractivity parameters from radar sea clutter," Radio Sci., Vol. 38, No. 3, 1-22, 2003..
doi:10.1029/2002RS002640
5. Karimian, , A., , C. Yardim, P. Gerstoft, W. S. Hodgkiss, and A. E. Barrios, "Refractivity estimation from sea clutter: An invited review," Radio Sci., Vol. 46, No. RS6013, 2011.
6. Roger, , L. T. , M. Jablecki, and , "Posterior distributions of a statistic of propagation loss inferred from radar sea clutter," Radio Sci., Vol. 40, No. RS6005, , 2005.
7. Vasudevan, , S., , R. H. Anderson, S. Kraut, P. Gerstoft, L. T. Rogers, and J. L. Krolik, "Recursive Bayesian electromagnetic refractivity estimation from radar sea clutter," Radio Sci.,, Vol. 42, No. RS2104, , 2007.
8. Douvenot, , R., , V. Fabbro, P. Gerstoft, C. Bourlier, and J. Saillard, "A duct mapping method using least squares support vector machines," Radio Sci., , Vol. 43, No. RS6005, 2008..
9. Yardim, , C., , P. Gerstoft, and W. S. Hodgkiss, "Sensitivity analysis and performance estimation of refractivity from clutter techniques," Radio Sci., Vol. 44, No. RS1008, 2009.
10. Zhao, , X. F., , S. X. Huang, and H. D. Du, "Theoretical analysis and numerical experiments of variational adjoint approach for refractivity estimation," Radio Sci., Vol. 46, No. RS1006, 2011.
11. Huang, , S. X., , X. F. Zhao, and Z. Sheng, , "Refractivity estimation from radar sea clutter," Chin. Phys. B,, Vol. 18, No. 11, 5084-5090, 2011.
12. Wang, , B., , Z.-S. Wu, Z. Zhao, and H.-G. Wang, , "Retrieving evap-oration duct heights from radar sea clutter using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm," Progress In Electromagnetics Research M, Vol. 9, 79-91, 2009.
doi:10.2528/PIERM09090403
13. Zhang, , J. P., , Z. S. Wu, Q. L. Zhu, and B. Wang, \A four-, "A four-parameter M-prodle model for the evaporation duct estimation from radar clutter," Progress In Electromagnetics Research,, Vol. 114, 353-368, 2011.
14. Zhang, , J.-P., , Z.-S. Wu, Y.-S. Zhang, and B. Wang, "Evaporation duct retrieval using changes in radar sea clutter power versus receiving height," Progress In Electromagnetics Research,, Vol. 126, 555-571, 2012.
doi:10.2528/PIER11121307
. Zhang, , S., , S.-X. Gong, Y. Guan, P.-F. Zhang, and Q. Gong, "A novel IGA-EDSPSO hybrid algorithm for the synthesis of sparse arrays," Progress In Electromagnetics Research, Vol. 89, 121-134, 2009.
doi:10.2528/PIER08120806