Design of a Low Earth Orbit Satellite Constellation Network for Air Traffic Surveillance

Abstract

The satellite constellation with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast on-board is of great importance for air traffic surveillance due to its multiple advantages compared with traditional methods. Although some research has been conducted on satellite constellation design based on coverage performance, the findings cannot entirely satisfy all the requirements of air traffic surveillance owing to the lack of analysis on inter-satellite links and network transmission. This paper presents a novel design of a low earth orbit satellite constellation network to solve this problem. Based on the requirements of space-based surveillance, an evaluation model of constellation performance is proposed concerning coverage, link and transmission. The simulation results show that the evaluation model can reflect the performance of a satellite constellation network designed for a space-based surveillance system, and a 55-satellite constellation design scheme with fairly good performance can fulfil the function of global real-time air traffic surveillance.

Coverage performance and the characteristics of interlayer links of multilayer LEO megaconstellations

“…The satellite-to-ground coverage domain refers to the total area on the ground that a satellite can observe at a given moment, and its range is typically determined by the elevation angle of the ground station. According to the literature [12][13][14][15] , when the minimum elevation angle of the satellite coverage is σmin, the spherical radius of the coverage cap c r is calculated as follows: max min min (arccos(cos ) ) A is given by: 2 2…”