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ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (3): 325173-325173.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2021.25173

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Efficient algorithm for calculating coverage of mega-constellation

LYU Linli1,2, XIAO Xinxin1, FENG Guanhua1,2, LI Wenhao1,2   

  1. 1. Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China;
    2. School of Engineering Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2020-12-28 Revised:2021-02-22 Online:2022-03-15 Published:2021-04-29
  • Supported by:
    Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (A1) (XDA17030200); Key Project of Chinese National Programs for Fundamental Research and Development (973) (2013CB733000); National Natural Science Foundation of China (11002143)

Abstract: A new coverage analysis approach, Parallel Mercator Projection Superposition (PMPS), is proposed for the design and construction of mega-constellation. In this method, the image superposition is applied to the Mercator projection map of the constellation coverage area to conduct coverage calculation. The method breaks through the correlation constraint between the grid number and satellite number in the traditional Grid Point Approach (GPA), and significantly reduces the sensitivity of computing consumption to the satellites number. Given calculation accuracy, as the number of satellites increases, the ratio of PMPS calculation consumption to GPA's gradually increases, and eventually tends to a limit value, which is positively correlated with the number of GPA grids. The simulation results show that in the global coverage analysis, when the number of GPA grids is 4 orders of magnitude and meets the specified calculation error, the efficiency of PMPS without parallel computing can be increased by 1 to 2 levels relative to that of GPA. When the number of GPA grids is larger, e.g., at 5 orders of magnitude, the efficiency of PMPS without parallel computing is expected to be increased by 2 to 3 levels relative to that of GPA.

Key words: mega-constellation, Parallel Mercator Projection Superposition (PMPS), coverage analysis, Grid-Point Approach (GPA), global coverage

CLC Number: