Control-Oriented Deep Space Communications For Unmanned Space Exploration

TL;DR

This paper develops a control-oriented communication optimization scheme for unmanned space exploration, focusing on the mother-daughter system to enhance the efficiency of the sensing, communication, computing, and control loops.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optimization framework for downlink communication in space robot systems, including solutions for block length and power allocation, with analytical insights and simulation validation.

Findings

The proposed scheme optimizes LQR cost effectively.

Derived closed-form solutions for power allocation.

Proved equivalence to max-min rate scheme for certain tasks.

Abstract

In unmanned space exploration, the cooperation among space robots requires advanced communication techniques. In this paper, we propose a communication optimization scheme for a specific cooperation system named the "mother-daughter system". In this setup, the mother spacecraft orbits the planet, while daughter probes are distributed across the planetary surface. During each control cycle, the mother spacecraft senses the environment, computes control commands and distributes them to daughter probes for actions. They synergistically form sensing-communication-computing-control ($\mathbf{SC^3}$) loops. Given the indivisibility of the $\mathbf{SC^3}$ loop, we optimize the mother-daughter downlink for closed-loop control. The optimization objective is the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) cost, and the optimization parameters are the block length and transmit power. To solve the nonlinear mixed-integer problem, we first identify the optimal block length and then transform the power allocation problem into a tractable convex problem. We further derive the approximate closed-form solutions for the proposed scheme and two communication-oriented schemes: the max-sum rate scheme and the max-min rate scheme. On this basis, we analyze their power allocation principles. In particular, for time-insensitive control tasks, we find that the proposed scheme demonstrates equivalence to the max-min rate scheme. These findings are verified through simulations.