Efficiency Enhancement of Situational Analysis for Space Mission Design Using Reordered Heuristics

Abstract

Situational analysis deals with verifying conditions of a geometric or physical nature during satellites' movement in their orbits. This analysis is applied to determine time intervals, optimal for the execution of specific satellite operations. Situational problems are solved at various stages of the preparation and operational phases of the satellite missions. The most interesting cases are when a situational problem contains multiple conditions. Each situational problem is solved by sequential verifications of the involved conditions. Verifications can be terminated when an unfulfilled condition is detected (Horner's rule) to improve the efficiency of the analysis. Calculations are repeated for subsequent time steps. Solving such a situational problem may be time-consuming when multi-variant and multi-satellite simulations are performed. A heuristic approach is proposed for the efficiency enhancement of situational analysis for problems including multiple conditions. This approach is based on the reordering of conditions checks. The approach is algorithmized and incorporated into the situational analysis solver that was previously developed. The efficiency of the proposed heuristics is evaluated based on examples with different numbers of situational conditions. This approach shows better efficiency than applying Horner's rule.