Evolutionary global attitude planning for satellite signature suppression shield

This paper explores the global attitude planning for satellite signature suppression shields with limited attitude control abilities. Space surveillance radar and high energy laser are the main threats to on-orbit satellite. The radar detection probability and laser irradiation power are coupled with the satellite´s radar cross section (RCS) and laser cross section (LCS) respectively, which are determined by the shield´s attitude. This paper presents an evolutionary global attitude planning algorithm for low observable satellites, to reduce their RCS and LCS in threat directions by limited shield attitude control. A novel evolutionary strategy is developed. The strategy has problem-specific individual structure and evolutionary methods, and is able to find a near-optimal global attitude solution with limited iterative steps. At the same time, a novel planning mathematical model and a relative evolutionary evaluation function are defined to reduce the planning´s computational complexity. According to the simulation results, the algorithm is proved to be efficient.