Research Projects

With increase in launch frequency, a large number of spacecraft with varying configurations, orbital slots, payloads and applications have to be operated with very limited resource availability – both human and systems. This trend demands a high degree of co-ordination and optimal usage of scarce on-board and ground resources, and this is where the use of sophisticated optimization techniques is critical to maximize efficiency and throughput. The applications of optimization techniques should result in the optimal scheduling of spacecraft payload operations pooling all user requests across all available spacecraft / sensors, taking all the operational and configurational constraints into account. The second aspect relates to the resource allocation problem. As the ground systems resources – antennas / data links / TTC stations - are scarce and expensive, the large increase in spacecraft numbers calls for the efficient and clash-free allocation of these resources. Suitable optimization techniques are required to model the problem and optimally allocate / utilize these resources.