发表机构
Politecnico di Torino（都灵理工大学）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本文提出一种两阶段优化策略，将空间覆盖设计与时间分辨率优化分离，以解决LEO/VLEO卫星星座设计中的非凸组合问题，并引入QUBO公式以兼容经典与量子求解器。
AI 中文摘要
地球观测卫星星座的设计需要在空间覆盖、重访时间、成本和操作复杂性之间取得平衡。本文考虑了为给定数量的低地球轨道（LEO）或极低地球轨道（VLEO）卫星设计轨道的问题，以最大化在指定地面目标集合上实现的空间和时间分辨率。这类问题本质上是非凸的，并且可能是组合的，这使得对于大型星座和目标集合而言，其求解在计算上要求很高。为了应对这一挑战，我们提出了一种两阶段优化策略，将空间覆盖设计与时间分辨率优化分开，从而降低了整体问题的复杂性。开发了该方法的两种变体。第一种在空间优化阶段采用连续决策变量，而第二种则将这些变量离散化，并将问题重新表述为二次无约束二元优化（QUBO）问题。后一种表述使得能够使用高效的经典QUBO求解器，并且与量子退火硬件直接兼容。所提出的框架为异构LEO和VLEO地球观测星座的设计提供了一种可扩展的方法，并为在卫星任务设计中利用新兴的量子优化技术建立了一条途径。初步仿真结果展示了该策略的有效性。
英文摘要
The design of satellite constellations for Earth observation requires balancing spatial coverage, revisit time, cost, and operational complexity. This paper considers the problem of designing the orbits of a given number of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) or Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellites to maximize the spatial and temporal resolution achieved over a prescribed set of ground targets. This kind of problem is inherently nonconvex and possibly combinatorial, making its solution computationally demanding for large constellations and target sets. To address this challenge, we propose a two-stage optimization strategy that separates spatial-coverage design from temporal-resolution optimization, thereby reducing the complexity of the overall problem. Two variants of the method are developed. The first employs continuous decision variables during the spatial-optimization stage, whereas the second discretizes these variables and reformulates the problem as a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problem. The latter formulation enables the use of efficient classical QUBO solvers and is directly compatible with quantum-annealing hardware. The proposed framework provides a scalable approach to the design of heterogeneous LEO and VLEO Earth-observation constellations and establishes a pathway for exploiting emerging quantum-optimization technologies in satellite mission design. Preliminary simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the strategy.
Comments15 pages, 1 figure, 1 table
