Evaluation of struggle strategy in Genetic Algorithms for ground stations scheduling problem

Ground station scheduling problem arises in spacecraft operations and aims to allocate ground stations to spacecraft to make possible the communication between operations teams and spacecraft systems. The problem belongs to the family of satellite scheduling for the specific case of mapping communications to ground stations. The allocation of a ground station to a mission (e.g. telemetry, tracking information, etc.) has a high cost, and automation of the process provides many benefits not only in terms of management, but in economic terms as well. The problem is known for its high complexity as it is an over-constrained problem. In this paper, we present the resolution of the problem through Struggle Genetic Algorithms - a version of GAs that distinguishes for its efficiency in maintaining the diversity of the population during genetic evolution. We present some computational results obtained with Struggle GA using the STK simulation toolkit, which showed the efficiency of the method in solving the problem. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.