Interactive Satellite Megaconstellation Simulation

Project for the Modelling and Simulation (MS) curricular unit.

Setup

• Ensure that the Rust compiler and cargo are installed. The quickest way to do so is to visit https://rustup.rs.
• Build the project in release mode:

cargo build --release

• Run the simulation, optionally providing a path to a TOML configuration file:

cargo run --release path/to/config.toml

• Run the visualization script, which will automatically connect to the simulation through a TCP socket.

python3 python/tcp_socket.py

• Optionally, you can also view statistics from simulation data which has been saved to a file:

python3 python/statistics.py path/to/simulation_data.json

Configuration File

This section explains the parameters that can be used in TOML configuration files for the simulator.

• name (optional): name of the scenario

Constellation Table (required)

• altitude: orbiting altitude of the satellites
• num_orbital_planes: number of orbital planes in the constellation
• satellites_per_plane: number of satellites per orbital plane
• inclination: angle between the orbital planes and the Earth's equatorial plane
• max_connections: maximum number of links that a single satellite can establish
• type: constellation type
  • in Walker Delta configurations ("delta"), the longitude values of the constellation's orbital planes span 360º around the Earth
  • in Walker Star Configurations ("star"), the longitude values of the constellation's orbital planes span 180º around the Earth
• phasing: used to calculate the phase offset (difference between the argument of periapsis of equivalent satellites from subsequent planes)

Parameter	Required	Value Type	Default Value	Interval of Accepted Values
altitude	Yes	float	N/A	> 0
num_orbital_planes	Yes	integer	N/A	> 0
satellites_per_plane	Yes	integer	N/A	> 0
inclination	Yes	float	N/A	[0, 90]
max_connections	Yes	integer	N/A	> 0
type	No	string	"delta"	("delta", "star")
phasing	No	integer	0	[0, num_orbital_planes[

Simulation Table (optional)

• file_path: file to which the statistics data from the simulation will be saved
  • When specified, the core simulation will run without artificial delays and will not communicate with the visualization or statistics component.
• steps: maximum number of time steps to run the simulation for
• simulation_speed: speed of the simulation (1 is real-time, 5 means that for every simulation second, five actual seconds have passed)
• update_frequency: frequency of updates to the simulation's state
• update_frequency_server: frequency of update messages sent to the visualization component
• connection_refresh_interval: interval between connection updates (in seconds)
• rng_seed: fixed seed for the random number generator; used to obtain reproducible scenarios
• starting_failure_probability: probability that a satellite will fail at the start of the simulation
• recurrent_failure_probability: probability that a satellite will fail at each connection update

Parameter	Required	Value Type	Default Value	Interval of Accepted Values
file_path	No	string	None	valid file path
steps	Only when file_path is specified	integer	None	> 0
simulation_speed	No	float	1.0	> 0
update_frequency	No	float	10.0	> 0
update_frequency_server	No	float	update_frequency	> 0
connection_refresh_interval	No	float	10.0	> 0
rng_seed	No	integer	None	>= 0
starting_failure_probability	No	float	0.0	[0.0, 1.0]
recurrent_failure_probability	No	float	0.0	[0.0, 1.0]

Strategy Table (optional)

• type: type of connection strategy
• offset: offset used to establish connections in the "grid" strategy

Parameter	Required	Value Type	Default Value	Interval of Accepted Values
type	No	string	"grid"	("grid", "nearest_neighbor")
offset	No	integer	0	>= 0

Interactive Visualization Tool

Executable versions of the visualization application for both Windows and Linux can be found in the project's GitHub repository in the releases section.

Controls

• Left mouse button: select satellite
• Right mouse button: rotate camera
• Mouse wheel: zoom in / out