A balancing heuristic for spacecraft equipment layout optimization

We introduce a load balancing heuristic, called SABH, for allocating equipment in satellite modules. The goal is to position equipment such that the distance between the center of mass produced by the layout and the center of the module is minimized and its moment of inertia, relative to the module main axis, is maximized. A set of experiments compare the performance of the heuristic per se with its combined use with two nature-inspired optimization algorithms, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Multi-Particle Collision Algorithm (MPCA).