LEO Satellite Constellation Design for Railway Communication Support

Abstract

The railway communication network serves as the backbone of modern railway systems. However, in special operating environments such as wilderness and desert regions, terrestrial networks often fail to provide effective communication support, thereby compromising operational safety and user experience. To address this issue, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite systems are considered a promising complementary solution. A coverage model tailored to railway scenarios is first established, incorporating coverage effectiveness, reliability, and regional heterogeneity. Subsequently, a survivability performance function is constructed based on inter‐satellite link establishment relationships. Furthermore, typical transportation hubs at representative time instants are selected to evaluate the communication capacity of the constellation, and a corresponding cost model is developed. Finally, an improved multiobjective particle swarm optimization (IMOPSO) algorithm is employed to solve the formulated multiobjective optimization problem (MOP), yielding the Pareto‐optimal front of constellation configurations. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves superior convergence performance and solution diversity.