The perspective of applying a multi-agent approach to control orbital opto-electronic surveillance constellation

A concept of development of small-size and light-weight spacecraft-based orbital constellations has been formed in the area of spacecraft (SC) development and use. A new class of «smart constellations» is associated with the autonomy of the SC being developed through automating both onboard decision-making and SC coordinated interaction processes in solving the target task, which enables to develop self-organizing SC constellations, called a SC swarm. This approach seems especially promising for construction of light-weight SC constellations, which makes it possible to update the list of existing methods of controlling Earth remote sensing instruments, emphasizing the mission performance upgrade of the constellation, specifically operability, adaptability and efficiency of solving the target task of observing the area of interest.