A method according to an aspect of the disclosure is for partitioning a radar acquisition volume, the method comprising the steps of: determining an allocated time to search an unpartitioned volume; determining a number of beam rows in an unpartitioned acquisition face; determining an average per-row search time for searching the angular region based on the determined allocated time and determined number of beam rows in an unpartitioned acquisition face; determining a number of beam rows in an allotted acquisition period that is searchable based on the average per-row search time; calculating a maximum elevation extent based on the number of beam rows in the allotted acquisition period; and searching an angular extent of the search volume based on the calculated maximum extent.