Comparative Study of Basic Constellation Models for Regional Satellite Constellation Design

Abstract

For the regional coverage satellite constellation design optimization under the condition of multi-constrains, an optimization model with the orbital semi-major axis minimization and the percentage of coverage time maximization is built. Basic constellation models such as Walker and Flower are used to reduce the search space dimensions and NSGA-II is applied to solve the educed bi-objective optimization model. Moreover, 4+2N constellation model is proposed and compared with Walker and Flower models in terms of optimization performance by interconnecting Matlab and STK. Finally, some conclusions about how to choose the constellation models for regional constellation design are given.