Enhancing the radar system simulator tool suite to allow the simulation of sensor networks.

• Evolving the Radar System Simulator into the Sensor Network Simulator. • Newly implemented Optical Performance Model was verified and validated with real data. • The SNS tool suite can be used to analyze sensor networks and their performance. The number of human-made objects orbiting the Earth is growing steadily. This trend is further accelerating during recent years due to increasing commercialization in the field of satellite operations and an increasing launch rate. Concerning the area of space surveillance and tracking (SST), this leads to higher demands with respect to object observation capabilities. In order to ensure the safe usability of the different Earth orbits for all spacecraft operators, it is of great importance to continuously observe and catalog as many of the human-made objects as possible. This is especially true for inactive and uncontrollable objects, i.e. space debris. Only by maintaining accurate catalogs of the space debris environment, involuntary collisions can be avoided and risks of losing a spacecraft kept low. While the number of space debris objects can only be expected to further increase, it is not trivial to increase the number of observation sites, such as telescopes and radars, or their capabilities to counter this. One way to increase the observation capabilities without constructing new observation sites is to search for possibilities to improve the efficiency with which the existing sensors observe objects. With the goal to study and analyze single sensors, sensor networks, and how they can be used in the most efficient way, a sensor network simulator tool suite has been developed at the Institute of Space Systems of the Technical University of Braunschweig. Originally, the tool suite was developed as a radar system simulator concentrating on the different radar system configurations, such as reflector antennas or phased arrays that are used in a mono- or bistatic mode. Additionally, the corresponding radar performance model is able to simulate a tracking as well as a scanning mode. Building upon this tool suite, it is now extended to include an optical performance model and the possibility to simulate not only ground-based but also space-based sensors. Within this work, the preliminary results obtained with the newly implemented optical performance model are shown. Using the enhanced version of this sensor network simulator tool suite, thorough analyses can now be made using the radar and optical performance models. Sensor networks consisting of radars and telescopes being both ground- or space-based can be studied in different configurations. Thereby, different aspects, such as observation strategies, sensor tasking, or choosing the right location and sensor to reach a certain goal can be investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]