A Low-Complexity Autonomy Scheme for Data Transmission Subsystem of Agile Satellites

For the features of agile satellites that have more missions per track, and higher requirements for response speed and accuracy of execution, a meta-task-based autonomous operation scheme of Data Transmission Subsystem with traversal execution is proposed. All commands that need to be executed for autonomous operation of DTS are classified and sorted to form a “command pool”. The on-orbit missions, which are summarized into five basic meta-tasks, are executed by travelling all commands in the pool to improve the execution efficiency and use flexibility. With the adoption of onboard highly-precise time system, the key commands can be executed opportunely. The test result of a simulation system shows that, with the scheme proposed, the DTS can complete preparation or mode transition within a minute, the time accuracy of key commands’ execution is not greater than 20 ms, and the efficiency of mission data-blocks is doubled compared with the traditional operation mode. The proposed low-complexity scheme has great potential in the subsystem-level autonomy design of agile satellites.