ObsBattery: Position-Aware Federated Learning with Dueling DQN Clustering and Training Adaptation for Satellite Battery Prediction

Satellite battery status prediction is crucial for ensuring the healthy operation of future satellite constellations. However, traditional telemetry-based methods, where satellite battery status is transmitted in real time to ground stations for processing, consume significant satellite bandwidth and introduce response delays. Advances in onboard computing and federated learning (FL) enable local model training and centralized parameter aggregation, reducing transmission overhead while leveraging distributed satellite data. Nevertheless, the unique orbital motion of satellites presents challenges for FL, primarily due to battery status heterogeneity arising from varying sunlight exposure. Limited onboard energy further necessitates balancing model performance with battery efficiency during local training. To tackle these issues, we propose ObsBattery—a position-aware FL framework that clusters satellites based on their orbital positions to improve model accuracy. ObsBattery employs a Dueling Deep Q-Network to dynamically determine satellite clustering and adapt local training rounds according to power availability, thereby reducing energy consumption during low-power phases. Evaluations on a real-world satellite battery dataset show that ObsBattery significantly improves both prediction accuracy and energy efficiency. Compared to a standard clustered FL approach, it reduces model MAE by 16% and energy consumption ratio by 6% under experimental conditions.