CNP Based Satellite Constellation Online Coordination Under Communication Constraints

This paper focuses on online managing Earth observation satellite constellation under dynamic environment, like detecting, observing, and tracking forest fires or volcanic eruptions without ground interval. In reality, the inter-satellite communication is limited by practical reasons. The objective is to maximize the total profit of the satellite constellation by increasing the efficiency of onboard resources and coordinating the different satellite to provide a greater level of responsiveness and adaptability, subject to communication time window constraints and observation time window constraints. Firstly, the online scheduling algorithm for a single satellite is proposed on basis of revision techniques and progressive techniques. Then, we propose the novel online coordination mechanism and the core algorithm based on Contract Net Protocol.