Systems engineering challenges for satellite swarms

Satellite swarms are globally controlled clouds of functionally identical satellite elements, cooperating to achieve a primary goal. ¹²Those elements are relatively simple spacecraft, driven by a simple set of behavioral rules. However, due to their interaction, and the dynamics of the environment, an emergent behavior will be observed. This emergent behavior in fact becomes one of the primary aspects of the spacecraft design, and the robustness of the swarm against faulty elements or changes in the environment are to be counteracted by it. Defining the optimal set of rules is one of the most difficult challenges in the field of spacecraft systems engineering, as well as in swarm software development. This paper describes a hybrid systems engineering approach to design such a satellite swarm, in which simulation results drive the element design redefinitions. Tools to implement this method comprise element-time-phase diagrams which are tailored to the specific problem of designing a satellite swarm.