Feedback-circulating Optimum Design for Perceiving Constellation Principle of Regional Observation Satellites

Abstract

A feedback-circulating optimum design has been implemented for constellation orbits of multiple satellites specializing in local coverage on the Earth. Advances in manufacturing technology and onboard electronics' performance have instantly and economically offered small satellites. With the rise of the data business, the market has surged from national projects using a single large satellite to individual cases using multiple small ones. However, the constellation orbit's design method specialized for regional observation, which is the purpose of the small-scale project, has not been established. This study has designed a constellation orbit by optimizing three satellite orbits simultaneously via design informatics. We used the satellite orbits as parameters and expressed the mission as multiple objective functions regarding system performance and operational cost, rendering it a multiobjective optimization problem. Furthermore, the study fed back the design information obtained by design informatics into the problem definition; it conducted multiple rounds of optimum design to approach the essence of the problem. This paper introduces the 2nd round. The result enabled us to reveal the tradeoffs between the objective functions and quantitatively explicated the efficient operational principles for the three-satellite constellation. We also gained insights for further sophisticating the problem definition.