Title of Paper: Planning and Scheduling Science Observations for
Fleets of Earth Orbiting Satellites
Principal Author: Dr. Robert Morris
Abstract: We address the problem of scheduling observations
for a collection of Earth Observing Satellites. This scheduling task is a
difficult optimization problem, involving multiple satellites, hundreds of
requests, constraints on when and how to service each request, and resources
such as instruments, recording devices, transmitters, and ground stations.
High-fidelity models are required to ensure the validity of schedules. At the
same time, the size and complexity of the problem makes it unlikely that
systematic search methods will be able to produce good solutions in a
reasonable amount of time. This paper presents an approach to solving the Earth
Observing Satellite scheduling problem that involves: 1) modeling of the
problem using a constraint-based language, 2) a stochastic greedy search
algorithm for finding solutions, and 3) heuristics based on a generalized
contention measure for guiding the search.