Analysis of Satellite Constellations for the Continuous Coverage of Ground Regions

Abstract

This paper studies the problem of analyzing multisatellite constellations with respect to their coverage capacity of areas on Earth's surface. The geometric configuration of constellation projection points on Earth's surface is investigated. A geometric subdivision approach is described, and the coverage target area belonging to each satellite and its maximum circle radius are defined and calculated. Accordingly, the target area can be decomposed into subregions, and thus the multisatellite coverage problem is decomposed into a one-satellite coverage problem. An accurate and effective solution method is proposed that solves both continuous and discontinuous coverage problems for any type of ground area. In addition, a procedure for calculating satellite orbital parameters is also proposed. The performance of our approach is analyzed using the Globalstar system as an example, and it is shown that it compares favorably with the classical grid-point technique and the longitude method.

Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Through Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellites: A Survey on Current Status, Challenges, and Opportunities

“…where θ corresponds to the cap angle (in degrees). Finally, the minimum orbit inclination to satisfy full global coverage can be computed as [79]:…”

School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240, Shanghai, China

“…The satellite is located at orbital height h and θ min indicates the minimum elevation angle with respect to GU. The relation between the coverage angle φ, the orbital height h, and the minimum elevation angle θ min is given by [56]…”

Cell Area-Based Method for Analyzing the Coverage Capacity of Satellite Constellations

“…According to the principle of the algorithm and the statistics of the experimental results, if the precision of the results increases N-fold, the computing time will increase N 2 -fold. Thus, this method is usually unsuitable for very large regions under high accuracy requirements [26].…”

“…It has been widely used in constellation performance analysis. The spherical polygon division method [26] is based on the dual vino diagram of the spherical triangulation method, and it can be used to analyze arbitrarily shaped regions. The latitude band method [27] divides the target region into a group of latitude bands for analysis, and the algorithm is efficient.…”