Autonomous Mission Planning for Multi-Agile Earth Observation Satellites Using Whale Optimization Algorithm

In this paper, the whale optimization algorithm is used to realize the mission planning of Multi-Agile Earth Observation Satellites for multiple target points. First of all, in the face of the observation problem of mul ti-satellite multitarget points, the fitness function, which satisfies the constraints faced by satellites when observing target points, is proposed in this paper. Secondly, in order to solve the task allocation problem of Multi-satellite to Multi-target points, a task allocation method based on the maximal time window is proposed in this paper. Next, the new whale optimization algorithms that have emerged in recent years is introduced in this paper. Considering that there has been no research on applying this algorithm to the mission planning problem so far, this paper proposes a method to map its iterative formula from the real number domain to the observation sequence domain based on the iterative characteristics of the whale optimization algorithm. This method enables the whale optimization algorithm to realize the iteration of the satellite observation sequence. Finally, the effectiveness of the whale optimization algorithm in solving the multi-satellite multi-target points planning problem is verified by simulation experiments.