Multiple Heterogeneous Sensor Tasking Optimization in the Absence of Measurement Feedback

Observations of resident space objects generated by sensors are the primary method of maintaining knowledge of the object states. With the increasing number of objects, efficient sensor allocation is becoming integral. This requires the coordination of multiple sensors with different capabilities in an optimized manner. While the optimization is greatly simplified if instantaneous communication between the sensors can be assumed and immediate processing is available, this is not a realistic setup. Information exchange and processing induces time delays that are longer than the time available to plan and start the sensor tasking step, without unnecessarily idling the sensor. In this paper, a method is introduced to form efficient sensor tasking in a multi-sensor system, without immediate communication between the sensors and observation processing, in the following called feedback. The coordination is exemplified using two sensors, with different fields of view in a follow-up scenario of objects in the geosynchronous region. The efficiency of the method is evaluated using the two line element catalog.

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