A Unified Approach for the Optimal Constellation Design of Satellites in Low-Earth Circular/Elliptical Orbits for Continuous Coverage

Abstract

Low-Earth Orbit constellations have become commercially viable in the fields of global mobile telephone, data messaging, and broad-band data communications services etc. In this area, Walker and Draim have made major contributions to the optimal constellation designs of satellites in Low-Earth Circular and Elliptical Orbits respectively, for continuous global coverage. This paper presents a novel unified approach for continuous global as well as zonal coverage which overcomes the limitations of both the approaches for constellation designs. The constellation designs have been optimized using the optimization technique of Differential Evolution instead of the conventional Grid Search Method. All proposed designs have been verified in SaVi and STK.