Self-organising low Earth orbit constellations for Earth observation

This paper presents a novel method of manipulating the spatial pattern of a fractionated micro-satellite constellation in Low Earth Orbit. The method developed allows satellites to manipulate the longitudinal position of their ground-tracks over the Earth’s surface, such that they pass over specified targets. This is achieved firstly by pairing satellites on the constellation to the targets on the Earth’s surface, and then by developing an artificial potential field controller to define the thrust commands which move the satellites into the appropriate orbital slots to converge upon their targets. The latter is achieved using Coupled Selection Equations - a dynamical systems approach to combinatorial optimisation