Developing and Simulating Optimal Satellite Constellation Control for Multi-Target Tracking and Space Situational Awareness

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September 15, 2017 – September 14, 2018

$75,000


Sandia National Laboratories

PI:

K. LeGrand

Co-PI:

S. Ferrari


Project Description

Today, the US is faced with the challenge of tracking tens of thousands of space objects using only a handful of ground- and space-based sensors. Because the number of objects far exceeds the number of available sensors, intelligent and efficient tasking of our sensors is paramount to successful space situational awareness (SSA). We propose harnessing recent advances in finite set statistics (FISST)-based multitarget tracking to improve SSA.

Research Goals

  • Architectural Technical Background Research: Compare between existing satellite constellation scheduling and control methodologies of distributed fractionated systems.
  • Modeling: Develop and simulate satellite constellation controls, which may include the reduced number of sensors, single target, static/dynamic targets, or simplified information theoretic objectives.