The performance of satellites on continuous and accumulative coverage during a given period are main concerns about earth-observation mission design. In this paper, an envelope curve-based coverage theory (ECCT) is proposed for the rapid computation of accumulative and continuous coverage boundary during a given period. First of all, the application of envelope curve theory to satellite coverage problem is introduced. Under this application background, inner envelope curves and outer envelope curves are proposed for continuous and accumulative coverage. Secondly, to validate the usability of ECCT, by setting different simulation scenario, the coverage boundaries results got by ECCT, compared with the coverage regions obtained by Satellite Tool Kit (STK) are presented. Finally, the efficiency of ECCT is illustrated by the time cost and computation accuracy comparisons with improved grid-point algorithm (iGPA) and longitude stripe-based algorithm (LSA) for solving a cumulative coverage boundary problem. The experimental results show that ECCT can provide a high-precision result within a shorter time.

在给定期间内连续和累积覆盖范围内卫星的性能是对地观测任务设计的主要关注点。本文提出了一种基于包络曲线的覆盖理论（ECCT），用于在给定时期内快速计算累积和连续的覆盖边界。首先介绍了包络线曲线理论在卫星覆盖问题中的应用。在这种应用背景下，提出了内部包络线和外部包络线用于连续和累积覆盖。其次，为了验证ECCT的可用性，通过设置不同的模拟方案，提出了ECCT获得的覆盖边界结果，并与Satellite Tool Kit（STK）获得的覆盖区域进行了比较。最后，通过使用改进的网格点算法（iGPA）和基于经度条纹的算法（LSA）解决累积覆盖边界问题的时间成本和计算精度比较，说明了ECCT的效率。实验结果表明，ECCT可以在更短的时间内提供高精度的结果。