1. An autonomous upgrading method of networking satellite-borne software is characterized by comprising the following steps:

when a networking communication link is established, the satellite exchanges state information frames with a node establishing the link with the satellite;

the satellite analyzes the received state information frame and compares the state information with self state information:

if the received hardware version is consistent with the satellite, but the software version is higher than the state information frame of the satellite, sending a software upgrading application frame to a node corresponding to the state information frame; and

and completing on-orbit software upgrading according to the returned software reconstruction data packet.

2. The autonomic upgrade method of claim 1, further comprising storing upgraded software data images to a ground station in batches according to hardware versions.

3. The autonomous upgrade method according to claim 1, wherein the networking communication link is established in a fixed link establishment manner or a dynamic link establishment manner of a time division system.

4. The autonomous upgrade method of claim 1 wherein the nodes comprise a satellite and a ground station.

5. The autonomic upgrade method of claim 1 wherein the status information frame comprises a satellite number, a stand-alone hardware version, a software configuration item number, and a software version number.

6. The autonomous upgrade method of claim 1 wherein the status information frames sent by the ground station are preferentially parsed after the received status information frames.

7. The autonomous upgrade method according to claim 1, wherein the upgraded program data comprises a plurality of program data blocks, the program data blocks are transmitted in a multi-satellite breakpoint continuous transmission manner, and the satellite gradually completes the software upgrade according to the received program data blocks.

8. The autonomic upgrade method as claimed in claim 7, wherein the application software upgrade frame comprises a source satellite number, a destination satellite number, a stand-alone number, a software configuration item number, and an application status.

9. The autonomic upgrade method of claim 8 wherein the apply for status comprises:

all 0 values: indicating that no upgrade is required;

all values of 1: indicating the primary application for upgrading; and

other values: indicating the program data block being upgraded.

Background

In order to adapt to the increasingly difficult space mission, the performance requirement of the satellite is increasingly high, and the function requirement is increasingly rich and diverse, so that the complexity of the satellite-borne software is increasingly high. At present, many aerospace software is guided by model tasks and customized development is performed on different aerospace tasks, so that software defects found in orbit, function upgrade or new software requirements all need to be reconstructed and corrected. With the development of technologies such as materials, processes and the like, the service life of the current satellite is greatly prolonged, and a good foundation is provided for software function upgrading and task expansibility in the service life of the satellite.

Both the repair of satellite-borne software defects and the upgrading of satellite functions or the expansion requirement of satellite tasks put an urgent need on the online upgrading of satellite-borne software, particularly large networking satellite constellations such as global navigation constellations, the star chains of the SpaceX company and the like. The traditional software upgrading mode is as follows: firstly, a ground measurement and control station prepares reconstruction software in advance according to satellite inbound information, which comprises unpacking and framing software data according to a specific remote control frame format, and packing single or multiple software configuration item program data into an upper injection format according to the size of a software configuration item; then, program data are uploaded to a satellite memory through an uplink channel, and a satellite downloads a data receiving state to the ground through remote measurement; after the ground monitors that the satellite completely receives the program data, the satellite manually sends a control instruction to the satellite, the satellite receives the instruction, the received program data is solidified into FLASH/EEPROM, the in-orbit software of the software configuration item of the ground round is upgraded or reconstructed, and the operations are repeated to complete the in-orbit upgrade or reconstruction of the configuration item of the other software to be reconstructed.

By adopting the method to upgrade or reconstruct the on-orbit software of the satellite, the preparation process is time-consuming and labor-consuming and is easy to make mistakes to cause faults; secondly, the number of the ground measurement and control stations is limited, the working range of each measurement and control station is limited, so that the time for each satellite to enter a visible arc section is very limited, and a plurality of arc sections are required for one-time software upgrading or reconstruction to work, so that the satellite service is influenced intermittently in the upgrading or reconstruction process, and the upgrading or reconstruction fails due to the easy occurrence of abnormity.

Disclosure of Invention

Aiming at partial or all problems in the prior art, the invention provides an autonomous upgrading method of networking satellite-borne software, which comprises the following steps:

when a networking communication link is established, the satellite exchanges state information frames with a node establishing the link with the satellite;

analyzing the received state information frame, and comparing with the self information:

if the hardware version is consistent with the state information frame and the software version is higher than the state information frame, sending a software upgrading application frame to a node corresponding to the state information frame; and

and completing on-orbit software upgrading according to the software reconstruction data packet returned by the node.

Further, the autonomous upgrading method further comprises the step of storing the upgraded software data in a mirror image mode to the ground station in batches.

Further, the networking communication link is established in a fixed link establishing mode or a dynamic link establishing mode of a time division system.

Further, the nodes include satellites and ground stations.

Further, the status information frame includes a satellite number, a stand-alone hardware version, a software configuration item number, and a software version number.

Furthermore, after the received status information frame, the status information frame sent by the ground station is preferentially analyzed.

Furthermore, the software reconfiguration data packet comprises a plurality of program data blocks, the program data blocks are transmitted in a breakpoint continuous transmission mode, and the satellite gradually completes software upgrading according to the received program data blocks.

Further, the application software upgrading frame comprises a source satellite number, a destination satellite number, a stand-alone number, a software configuration item number and an application state.

Further, the application state includes:

all 0 values: indicating that no upgrade is required;

all values of 1: indicating the primary application for upgrading; and

other values: indicating the program data block being upgraded.

The autonomous upgrading method of networking satellite-borne software provided by the invention only needs to store the upgraded software mirror image to the ground station, and then carries out information interaction through the networking communication link: the method comprises the steps of software state information interaction and comparison, software reconstruction data packet transmission and the like. The whole process of satellite software reconstruction does not need manual intervention, the satellite-borne software realizes the autonomous monitoring of software versions and generates version updating requirements by comparing the self state with the received state information of other satellites or ground stations, and then autonomously updates the software according to the version updating requirements, so that the state consistency of each satellite in a networking batch can be ensured, and the problem of autonomous hardware and software upgrading of the same-state constellation satellite group is solved. In addition, when the satellite generates version updating requirements, hardware information and software information need to be compared at the same time, so that intelligent and autonomous judgment of software versions of satellites with different hardware versions in the same networking satellite constellation can be detailed and distinguished, and the problem of software autonomous upgrading with different satellite types and software and hardware in a large constellation satellite group is solved. Meanwhile, in the autonomous upgrading method, the ground station prepares the data for software upgrading, after the data is updated to a certain satellite from the ground, the ground station does not need to plan a measurement and control arc section again for software reconstruction, a networking satellite autonomously requests to autonomously generate an upgrading program data packet on the satellite, and the upgrading program data packet is transmitted through an inter-satellite link, wherein the upgrading program data also supports multipath breakpoint continuous transmission, and the satellite can continuously complete the current autonomous software upgrading of the satellite through other satellites or the ground station. .

Drawings

To further clarify the above and other advantages and features of embodiments of the present invention, a more particular description of embodiments of the present invention will be rendered by reference to the appended drawings. It is appreciated that these drawings depict only typical embodiments of the invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope. In the drawings, the same or corresponding parts will be denoted by the same or similar reference numerals for clarity.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart of a method for autonomously upgrading software onboard a networking satellite according to an embodiment of the invention;

figure 2 shows a schematic diagram of a fixed set-up of networking constellations; and

figures 3a-3c show schematic diagrams of dynamic chaining of networking constellations.

Detailed Description

In the following description, the present invention is described with reference to examples. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the embodiments may be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other alternative and/or additional methods, materials, or components. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the invention. Similarly, for purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials and configurations are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the invention. However, the invention is not limited to these specific details. Further, it should be understood that the embodiments shown in the figures are illustrative representations and are not necessarily drawn to scale.

Reference in the specification to "one embodiment" or "the embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

In this specification, unless specifically stated otherwise, the terms "satellite," "satellite number," "source satellite number," and "destination satellite number" are not limited to satellites in a networking constellation and their numbers, but also include linked ground stations and their numbers.

The defects of the current satellite on-orbit software upgrading or reconstruction are as follows:

1) the unavailable time of a single satellite in the software reconstruction process reaches several days, the software upgrading of all satellites of the constellation is completed, and the satellite interruption time can reach dozens of to hundreds of days; in addition, on-orbit maintenance of satellite-borne software requires manual comparison of software versions continuously on the ground according to different batches of satellites, if each satellite has hundreds of software configuration items, the software versions need to be manually compared and checked for thousands of times, and the work is repeated and huge; for example, the global navigation system comprises 24 MEO satellites, 3 IGSO constellations and 3 GEO satellites, all of the satellites belong to large satellites, about 100 more than one items of embedded software on the satellite are involved, 30 more than one satellite are involved in the networking constellation, and the software with on-orbit maintenance requirements is equivalent to 3000 more items of software; for example, after a Starlink satellite system of the SpaceX company is built, a giant constellation composed of nearly 12000 satellites is constructed, and if each satellite only has one software configuration item, software upgrading or reconstruction of the whole constellation can be realized only by tens of thousands of repeated operations, so that the required workload and the time cost are huge;

2) the on-orbit reconstruction of the satellite-borne software usually has larger data and longer required time, so the on-orbit reconstruction can be completed in a measurement and control arc section of a ground station less frequently, the arc section planning is required to be carried out according to the operation condition of a satellite every time data is injected from the ground measurement and control station for software upgrading, and the management flow is complex;

3) when software mirror images are injected from a ground measurement and control station, manual unpacking and data processing are needed to be carried out on software binary mirror image data, errors are easy to occur, the operation of a general software unpacking and recombining process is complicated, corresponding telemetering data needs to be monitored manually in real time to be interpreted in a data injection stage, and the time, labor and intelligence degrees are low;

4) when software mirror image data is annotated in a planning arc segment, most operations relate to software restarting, single-machine startup and shutdown and other operations, and the satellite service needs to be suspended, so that the normal service operation of the satellite is influenced.

The inventor finds that the defects of the existing in-orbit software upgrading method are mainly caused by the fact that all satellites need to perform information interaction with the ground station to complete software upgrading, and therefore the existing in-orbit software upgrading method is necessarily limited by the number of the ground stations, the working range and the like. The main reason for this approach is that in early satellite systems, the orbiting satellites generally operated as independent individuals, which communicated with the ground system through the measurement and control system, and communication between the satellites was not possible. However, with the development and maturity of the technology, the inter-satellite link technology has started to be applied in a large amount in the satellite system, and through the inter-satellite link technology, the communication link between the satellites can be established, and the inter-satellite ranging and communication functions are realized, and the inter-satellite ranging and communication functions cooperatively work to form a whole to form a networking satellite constellation. Therefore, if the transmission of the upgraded software data can be completed through inter-satellite communication, the communication time length between the satellite and the ground station or the size of the transmitted data can be reduced, so that the software reconstruction does not need to be subjected to extra arc section planning and other work, and the defects can be avoided to a certain extent. Based on the above, the invention provides an autonomous upgrading method of networking satellite-borne software, which realizes autonomous upgrading of the satellite-borne software through a networking communication link, basically does not need manual intervention, but is performed autonomously by the satellite, and the satellite can ensure continuity of a reconstruction process through the networking communication link, increase reliability of reconstruction, greatly save manpower and material resources and have higher reliability.

Firstly, the ground station and the on-orbit networking satellite are both regarded as one of network nodes by the autonomous upgrading method, and satellite state information stored in the ground station and the satellite are respectively stored in the ground station and the satellite; then, when a certain satellite and other satellites or ground stations establish a link for the first time, the satellite state information exchange is carried out for one time, if the satellite state information exchange finds that the hardware state of the opposite satellite or ground station is consistent with the satellite state information exchange and the software version is higher than the self height, a software upgrading request frame is sent to the opposite satellite or ground station, and after the opposite satellite or ground station receives the request frame, the software mirror image is sent to the satellite until the satellite is completely received, and the satellite software upgrading is completed. In the process of sending the software mirror image, the satellite does not exchange and compare the satellite state information any more, the satellite is set to be in an initial state after the software mirror image data interaction is completed between the satellite and the satellite, and the satellite state information is exchanged again when a link is established with other satellites next time. According to the connectivity of the satellite networking, once the version of the satellite software is newer, the whole network of satellites can be upgraded through the propagation between the satellites.

The scheme of the present invention is further described below with reference to the accompanying drawings of embodiments, and fig. 1 is a schematic flow chart illustrating an autonomous upgrade method for networking satellite onboard software according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 1, an autonomous upgrade method for networking satellite onboard software includes:

first, in step 101, ground station information is updated. When the satellite has the requirement of function optimization or new addition, modifying the satellite-borne software on the ground, verifying the modified satellite-borne software on the ground, storing the software image of the latest version to the ground station, and updating the hardware state of the ground station corresponding to the software of the version;

next, at step 102, state information is exchanged. When a networking communication link is established between the satellite and the ground station or between the satellite and the satellite, the state information frame of the satellite and/or the ground station is sent to the satellite and/or the ground station, and the state information frame of the satellite and/or the ground station is received, so that the software version information exchange is completed once. The networking communication link between the satellite and the ground station or between the satellite and the ground station can be established in the following two ways:

a fixed link building mode, fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a networking constellation fixed link building, as shown in fig. 2, two satellites in front of and behind the orbital plane are connected in pairs in the fixed link building, and each orbital plane is connected with an odd-numbered satellite and an adjacent orbital plane on the left side thereof, and an even-numbered satellite is connected with an adjacent orbital plane on the right side thereof, and the ground station also serves as a node and can communicate with the satellite entering a visible arc section thereof for data transmission; and

a dynamic link establishment mode of a time division system, which implements ordered and efficient link establishment between satellites through time slot division and reasonable arrangement and allocation of time slots, fig. 3a to 3c show schematic diagrams of networking constellation dynamic link establishment, as shown in fig. 3a to 3c, taking 5 satellites and 1 ground station as an example, showing a link establishment situation of a satellite with 3 continuous time slots: in the time slot N, a satellite B is linked with a ground station, a satellite C is linked with a satellite D, and a satellite E is linked with a satellite A; in the time slot N +1, a satellite A builds a link with a ground station, a satellite B builds a link with a satellite C, and a satellite D builds a link with a satellite E; in the time slot N +2, a satellite C builds a link with a ground station, a satellite B builds a link with a satellite D, and a satellite A builds a link with a satellite E, dynamic updating in a period of time is realized through switching of the time slots, and therefore whole network communication in a period of time is realized;

in a networking constellation, each satellite is set with an independent satellite number, a ground station can also be used as a satellite node for carrying out unified numbering, meanwhile, each single machine on the satellite has an independent number, hardware of each single machine can be upgraded and modified according to actual conditions, such as different development time, satellite batch and the like, the hardware of the single machine is divided into different versions, a plurality of pieces of software can be contained on the same single machine, each piece of software is also provided with different numbers, the software also has version information according to different versions, and according to the description contents, in one embodiment of the invention, the format definition of the state information frame is shown in table 1. The state information frame comprises a satellite number, an information type and a plurality of information subframes, any one of the information subframes represents software and hardware version information of a software configuration item, and comprises a stand-alone number, a stand-alone hardware version, a software configuration item number and a software version number, wherein the data length of each piece of information can be set as shown in table 1, and can also be set according to actual requirements: the data length of the satellite number can be defined according to the number of networking satellites, for example, when the information is set to be 8 bits, 256 satellites can be numbered, and the method is suitable for networking constellations with the satellite number lower than 256; the data length of the stand-alone number is defined according to the number of stand-alone units of the upgradeable software on the satellite, for example, if the data length of the stand-alone number is 8 bits, the data length is suitable for the satellite with the number of stand-alone units of the upgradeable software lower than 256, and each stand-alone can be numbered in sequence: such as the onboard computer number 0x00, the telemetry terminal number 0x01, the remote control terminal 0x02, the load stand-alone number 0x03, and so on.

TABLE 1

Next, in step 103, the status information is parsed. After the satellite receives the state information frame, the information of the satellite number, the stand-alone hardware version, the software configuration item number and the software version number is analyzed. In one embodiment of the invention, when the orbiting satellite is in a visible arc section of the ground station and simultaneously receives the state information frames sent by the ground station and other satellites, the state information frames sent by the ground station are preferentially analyzed; when the satellite enters the invisible position of the ground station from the visible position of the ground station and receives the state information frame sent by other satellites, the received state information frame of other satellites is analyzed;

next, at step 104, the status information is compared. The satellite compares the analyzed information with the corresponding information of the satellite: when the hardware version of the single machine of the ground station or other satellites is consistent with the single machine and the software version number information is new to the single machine, the method enters a step 105, if the hardware version of the single machine is inconsistent, the subsequent operation is not carried out, the method returns to the step 103, and the received other state information frames are continuously analyzed;

next, at step 105, an application software upgrade frame is transmitted. In an embodiment of the present invention, the application software upgrade frame includes, as shown in table 2, a source satellite number, a destination satellite number, an information type, and a plurality of subframes, and any one of the subframes represents an application state of a software configuration item, including a stand-alone number, a software configuration item number, and an application state. Wherein, the data length of each information can be set as shown in table 2, and can also be set according to actual requirements: the source satellite number refers to the number of the satellite to be upgraded, and the destination satellite number refers to the number of the ground station or the satellite which sends the state information frame; the application state represents the upgrading state of the corresponding software configuration item:

if the application state is all 0 values, the corresponding software configuration item does not need to be upgraded;

if the application state is all 1 values, the corresponding software configuration item is represented to be initially applied for upgrading; and

if the application state is other numerical values, the corresponding software configuration item is upgraded and is not finished temporarily;

TABLE 2

In order to reduce the software upgrading time as much as possible and improve the software upgrading efficiency, in an embodiment of the present invention, a satellite borne software configuration item is further divided into several different software modules according to functions, so that only the software module to be upgraded can be updated when the satellite borne software is upgraded, and in this embodiment, the software configurational number further includes information of the divided software modules; and

finally, at step 106, the on-track software is upgraded. And after receiving the application software upgrading frame, the ground station or the satellite analyzes the frame to obtain the stand-alone number, the software configuration item number and the application state, and sends a software reconstruction data packet to the satellite sending the application according to the application state to complete the in-orbit software upgrading of the satellite linked with the ground station or the satellite. In an embodiment of the present invention, to ensure the continuity of software upgrade, the software reconfiguration data packet includes a plurality of program data blocks, and the program data blocks are transmitted in a multi-satellite breakpoint continuous transmission manner, and when a satellite enters a ground invisible arc section from a ground visible arc section, the autonomous software upgrade of the current satellite can be continuously completed through other satellites, specifically, when the satellite is still in a software upgrade process and all software upgrades to be updated are not completed, the satellite enters a ground station invisible area, and at this time, the satellite updates its own software state, and then compares the latest software and hardware state with received information frames of other satellite states: if the hardware state of the satellite is consistent with the hardware state of the satellite and the software version is updated, a software upgrading application frame is sent to the satellite. In the application software upgrade frame: filling the application state of the software needing to be upgraded with a program block number for upgrading the software configuration item; for software which does not need to be upgraded, the application state of the software is filled with 0; for the software which is initially applied for upgrading, the application state is filled with all 1 values. The other stars receive the application software upgrading frame and analyze the equipment number, the software configuration item number and the application state one by one; and when the application state is non-zero, executing different operations according to the application state value: when the application state value is not all 1, a program data block corresponding to the value is sent to the satellite applying for software upgrading according to the value, and subsequent program blocks are continuously sent after the completion of the application until the subsequent software to be upgraded is gradually updated; and when the value of the application state is all 1, sequentially sending all program data to be upgraded from the 1 st program data block of the software to the 1 st program data block of the software until the subsequent software to be upgraded is gradually completed. In the embodiment of the invention, the program data block is transmitted in the link establishing time slot, so that the link establishing of the satellite is hardly influenced.

The in-orbit networking satellite has different development time of different batches, and the hardware version of a subsequent satellite is possibly upgraded, so that the hardware versions of the networking satellite are different, but based on the autonomous upgrading method in the embodiment of the invention, uniform software upgrading can be carried out on all ground stations according to the hardware batch, intelligent autonomous judgment can be carried out on the satellites with different hardware versions, after the software upgrading of all the satellites with the same hardware state in the batch is completed, the software upgrading of the hardware state in the next batch is carried out on the ground stations, the process is circulated, and therefore the upgrading of all software configuration items of the in-orbit different hardware state satellites is completed quickly.

While various embodiments of the present invention have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example only, and not limitation. It will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art that various combinations, modifications, and changes can be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present invention disclosed herein should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments, but should be defined only in accordance with the following claims and their equivalents.