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A master's thesis from Aalborg University
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Scheduling Convoys of Nanosatellites

Authors

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Term

4. term

Education

Publication year

2018

Submitted on

Pages

74

Abstract

Den stigende interesse for at overvåge Jordens klima og flytrafik får virksomheder til at overveje at sende mange satellitter i kredsløb. Disse satellitter skal kunne kommunikere både med hinanden og med jordstationer. Dette projekt undersøger, hvordan man kan planlægge opgaver og kommunikation for grupper af flere satellitter, også når nogle eller alle deler samme bane. Vi bruger værktøjerne UPPAAL CORA og SMC—software til at modellere og afprøve tidsafhængige systemer—til at generere "spor" (mulige sekvenser af handlinger), som kan omsættes til praktiske tidsplaner for satellitterne. Først bygger vi en deterministisk model i SMC med en præemptiv (afbrydbar) planlægger og simpel dynamisk prioritering, hvor prioriteter kan ændre sig undervejs. Under udviklingen afdækker vi begrænsninger ved at planlægge mange satellitter, og den viden bruger vi til at konstruere en ikke-deterministisk model i CORA. Denne model anvender en VBP-planlægger, der vurderer opgavernes vigtighed. Til sidst evaluerer vi de to modeller på baggrund af eksperimenter og sammenligner deres egenskaber.

Growing interest in monitoring Earth’s climate and air traffic has led companies to consider launching many satellites. These satellites need to communicate with each other and with ground stations. This project explores how to schedule tasks and communication for groups of satellites, including cases where some or all share the same orbit. We use the tools UPPAAL CORA and SMC—software for modeling and testing time-dependent systems—to generate "traces" (possible sequences of actions) that can be turned into workable schedules. First, we build a deterministic model in SMC with a preemptive scheduler and simple dynamic prioritization, meaning lower-priority tasks can be interrupted and priorities can change. While creating and testing this model, we identify limits in coordinating multiple satellites and use those insights to build a non-deterministic model in CORA. This second model uses a VBP scheduler that ranks tasks by importance. Finally, we evaluate the two models based on experiments and compare their characteristics.

[This abstract was generated with the help of AI]