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Hybrid constellation design using a genetic algorithm for a LEO-based navigation augmentation system

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Abstract

A low earth orbit (LEO) constellation can support broadband Internet access and can also be a platform for navigation augmentation for global navigation satellite systems. LEO satellites have the potential to transmit very strong navigation signals; they also show rapid changes in spatial geometry as they come closer to earth and travel faster over stations than satellites in medium or high orbits do. Before the establishment of a LEO-based navigation augmentation system, constellation design is a critical task. Previous LEO constellations have usually employed single polar or near-polar orbits for global coverage, resulting in fewer visible satellites at low latitudes. We propose and optimize several hybrid LEO-augmented constellations using a genetic algorithm to realize globally even coverage. When there are 100 LEO satellites, the average numbers of visible satellites during a regression period are 5.49, 5.44 and 5.47, with standard deviations of 0.44, 0.18 and 0.28, for the optimized hybrid polar-orbit/Walker, orthogonal circular-orbit/Walker and Walker/Walker constellations, respectively. For the hybrid orthogonal circular-orbit/Walker constellation type, the necessary numbers of LEO satellites to realize globally even coverage with six visible satellites are 109, 172 and 221 for elevation mask angles of 7°, 15° and 20°, respectively. For coverages with four and five visible satellites with an elevation mask angle of 7°, the required numbers of satellites are 90 and 93, respectively. All proposed hybrid constellations can provide 100% global coverage availability with one to three visible satellites for broadband Internet access.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 41825009), a Wuhan Science and Technology Project (No. 2018010401011270), the Changjiang Scholars program and the Guangxi Key Laboratory of Spatial Information and Geomatics (No. 19-050-11-09).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Fujian Ma, Xiaohong Zhang, Xingxing Li, Junlong Cheng, Fei Guo & Jiahuan Hu

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Geospatial Technology, Wuhan, China

    Xiaohong Zhang

  3. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Spatial Information and Geomatics, Guilin, China

    Lin Pan

  4. School of Geosciences and Info-Physics, Central South University, Changsha, China

    Lin Pan

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  1. Fujian Ma
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  2. Xiaohong Zhang
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  3. Xingxing Li
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  4. Junlong Cheng
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  5. Fei Guo
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  6. Jiahuan Hu
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  7. Lin Pan
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Correspondence to Xiaohong Zhang.

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Appendix: Constellation configurations

Appendix: Constellation configurations

The constellation configurations for all proposed schemes are summarized in Table 7.

Table 7 Configurations of optimized hybrid LEO constellations as well as two single constellations
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Ma, F., Zhang, X., Li, X. et al. Hybrid constellation design using a genetic algorithm for a LEO-based navigation augmentation system. GPS Solut 24, 62 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10291-020-00977-0

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