Abstract

This paper describes the application of an evolutionary optimization method to design satellite constellation for continuous regional coverage without intersatellite links. This configuration, called mutual coverage, is related to some technical limitations that exist on small satellite technology. The coverage of the north Algerian seismological network is taken as an example of application. A Multi Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) is used to make a trade-off between the improvement of the coverage rate, the minimization of the total number of satellites and the reduction of the satellites' altitude. First, some experiments have been performed to find the weight distribution of the fitness function that shows the most significant improvement of the average fitness function. Then, some optimized constellation designs are given for different ranges of altitude and it is shown that the size of the MOGA constellation design is significantly reduced compared to the traditional geometrical design.

Highlights

  • Designing a constellation of satellites for a given space mission is a complex multi-parametric optimization process

  • For a regional coverage problem, which is our object of study, Genetic Algorithms have been mostly employed compared to other methods

  • In order to maintain a continuous coverage of the ground stations and the data center, we consider that the satellites must insure continuously a mutual coverage of all the ground stations and the data center supposed to be within the same area

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Summary

Introduction

Designing a constellation of satellites for a given space mission is a complex multi-parametric optimization process. We introduce the design optimization process of constellations of small satellites for regional coverage without intersatellite links (ISLs). In order to maintain a continuous coverage of the ground stations and the data center, we consider that the satellites must insure continuously a mutual coverage of all the ground stations and the data center supposed to be within the same area Due to the fact that the existing geometrical models do not solve the mutual coverage design problem and most of them treat the instantaneous coverage of a single point on Earth, Section 3 is intended to describe the implementation of a genetic algorithm to design a constellation of satellites dedicated to provide a mutual coverage of a given region. The results obtained are compared with the traditional geometrical approach used in single point coverage

Continuous coverage
Mutual coverage
Constellation design using Genetic Algorithm
Fitness evaluation
Selection
Reproduction
Coverage parameters
Genetic algorithm parameters
Weights distribution of the fitness function
Optimization
Satellite orbital lifetime
Conclusions
Satellite lifetime estimation

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