Approach for earth observation satellite real-time and playback data transmission scheduling

The scheduling of earth observation satellites (EOSs) data transmission is a complex combinatorial optimization problem. Current researches mainly deal with this problem on the assumption that the data transmission mode is fixed, either playback or real-time transmission. Considering the characteristic of the problem, a multi-satellite real-time and playback data transmission scheduling model is established and a novel algorithm based on quantum discrete particle swarm optimization (QDPSO) is proposed. Furthermore, we design the longest compatible transmission chain mutation operator to enhance the performance of the algorithm. Finally, some experiments are implemented to validate correctness and practicability of the proposed algorithm.