Abstract
The advantages of the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite include low-latency communications, shorter positioning time, higher positioning accuracy, and lower launching, building, and maintenance costs. Thus, the introduction of LEO satellite constellation as a regional navigation augmentation system for the current navigation constellations is studied in this paper. To achieve the navigation performance requirement with the least system cost, a synthetic approach is presented to design and deploy a cost-efficient LEO navigation augmentation constellation over 108 key cities. To achieve lower construction costs, the constellation is designed to be deployed by constrained piggyback launches, which brings additional complexity to the constellation design. Two optimization models with discrete and continuous performance indices are established. They are solved by the genetic algorithm and differential evolution algorithm, and both Walker and Flower constellations are adopted. Results for 77 and 70 satellites are obtained. During the construction phase, a synthesis procedure containing five impulses is proposed by utilizing natural drift under J 2 perturbation. This work presents a method for designing the optimal LEO navigation constellation under a constraint deployment approach with the lowest construction cost and a strategy to deploy the constellation economically.
Highlights
Navigation constellation design has received interest for years
Most existing navigation constellations are deployed in Medium Earth orbits and geosynchronous Earth orbits, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), and GALILEO constellations
Resent research presents that a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation provides a significant advantage over a geostationary (GEO) satellite in terms of low-latency communications, shorter positioning time, higher positioning accuracy, and lower launching, building, and maintenance costs [1,2,3]
Summary
Navigation constellation design has received interest for years. Most existing navigation constellations are deployed in Medium Earth orbits and geosynchronous Earth orbits, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), and GALILEO constellations (the orbital data is obtained from http://delestrak.com). Palmade et al combined two identical Walker constellations and proposed the SkyBridge constellation, in which the architecture of the constellation is made of 64 satellites distributed in two subconstellations shifted by -10° in the longitude of the International Journal of Aerospace Engineering ascending node and +14° in mean anomaly This configuration offers better coverage performance with fewer satellites [9]. By removing some design constraints, Flower constellations have been demonstrated to have better navigation performance than the existing GPS, GLONASS, and GALILEO using the same numbers of satellites or achieve the same performance using fewer satellites [11,12,13] In recent years, this theory has been applied to the constellation design problem domains including navigation, Earth observation space-based systems, regional coverage, and reconnaissance [14].
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