Abstract: The study of multiple satellite scheduling that satisfies complicated satellite observation requirements is of great importance in improving the supporting capability of an earth observation system. The scheduling is made more complex by the diversity of various satellite observing requirements and the differences of their characteristics as compared with scheduling of small target observation. Based on an analysis of the characteristics of the issue, the article establishes an integer programming model, and proposes a new algorithm named hierarchical immune genetic algorithm (HIGA) to solve it. The algorithm adopts a two-layer operation, with a genetic operation in the parent layer, and an immunity operation in the child layer. Moreover, it incorporates gene recombination, adaptive immunity updating and niche mechanism to improve the performance of the searching process. Experimental results show that the algorithm is both feasible and efficient in multiple satellite scheduling.

Key words: earth observing satellite, scheduling, immune genetic algorithm, hierarchical control, immunity operation