A Novel Analytical Method for Designing Hybrid Mega Satellite Constellations

The satellite communication systems are considered to be a powerful complement to terrestrial communication systems to provide seamless coverage. In this paper, we propose a novel analytical approach for designing hybrid circular orbit satellite constellations, which is able to meet arbitrary coverage performance requirements. Designing a satellite constellation consisting of a large number of satellites with a hybrid structure is challenging due to its high complexity and the difficulty of evaluating the coverage performance of the designed satellite constellation. The proposed method recognizes the constellation design problem as a Non-Negative Least Squares (NNLS) problem and proposes an unified formulate to evaluate the coverage performance. The simulation results demonstrate that our method can generate constellation configurations that align closely with desired coverage requirements, maintaining an acceptable level of deviation.