Visibility conflict resolution for multiple antennae and multi-satellites via genetic algorithm

Satellite mission control systems typically are operated by scheduling missions to the visibility between ground stations and satellites. The communication for the mission is achieved by interacting with satellite visibility and ground station support. Specifically, the satellite forms a cone-type visibility passing over a ground station, and the antennas of ground stations support the satellite. When two or more satellites pass by at the same time or consecutively, the satellites may generate a visibility conflict. As the number of satellites increases, solving visibility conflict becomes important issue. In this study, we propose a visibility conflict resolution algorithm of multi-satellites by using a genetic algorithm (GA). The problem is converted to scheduling optimization modeling. The visibility of satellites and the supports of antennas are considered as tasks and resources individually. The visibility of satellites is allocated to the total support time of antennas as much as possible for users to obtain the maximum benefit. We focus on a genetic algorithm approach because the problem is complex and not defined explicitly. The genetic algorithm can be applied to such a complex model since it only needs an objective function and can approach a global optimum. However, the mathematical proof of global optimality for the genetic algorithm is very challenging. Therefore, we apply a greedy algorithm and show that our genetic approach is reasonable by comparing with the performance of greedy algorithm application.