Autonomous Scheduling of Agile Spacecraft Constellations with Delay Tolerant Networking for Reactive Imaging
Sreeja Nag, Alan S. Li, Vinay Ravindra, Marc Sanchez Net, Kar-Ming, Cheung, Rod Lammers, Brian Bledsoe

TL;DR
This paper presents an onboard autonomous scheduling algorithm for agile small spacecraft constellations, utilizing Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking to improve response times and data management for reactive imaging tasks.
Contribution
It introduces a novel onboard scheduling algorithm combined with DTN communication for small spacecraft, enabling autonomous, time-sensitive imaging without ground control.
Findings
11.3x improvement in command and control efficiency over non-agile systems
21% efficiency gain using DTN over non-DTN systems
Successful simulation of targeted measurements of episodic events
Abstract
Small spacecraft now have precise attitude control systems available commercially, allowing them to slew in 3 degrees of freedom, and capture images within short notice. When combined with appropriate software, this agility can significantly increase response rate, revisit time and coverage. In prior work, we have demonstrated an algorithmic framework that combines orbital mechanics, attitude control and scheduling optimization to plan the time-varying, full-body orientation of agile, small spacecraft in a constellation. The proposed schedule optimization would run at the ground station autonomously, and the resultant schedules uplinked to the spacecraft for execution. The algorithm is generalizable over small steerable spacecraft, control capability, sensor specs, imaging requirements, and regions of interest. In this article, we modify the algorithm to run onboard small spacecraft,…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSatellite Communication Systems · Opportunistic and Delay-Tolerant Networks · Age of Information Optimization
