Efficient Policy Learning with Hybrid Evaluation-Based Genetic Programming for Uncertain Agile Earth Observation Satellite Scheduling

The Uncertain Agile Earth Observation Satellite Scheduling Problem (UAEOSSP) is a novel combinatorial optimization problem and a practical engineering challenge that aligns with the current demands of space technology development. It incorporates uncertainties in profit, resource consumption, and visibility, which may render pre-planned schedules suboptimal or even infeasible. Genetic Programming Hyper-Heuristic (GPHH) shows promise for evolving interpretable scheduling policies; however, their simulation-based evaluation incurs high computational costs. Moreover, the design of the constructive method, denoted as Online Scheduling Algorithm (OSA), directly affects fitness assessment, resulting in evaluation-dependent local optima within the policy space. To address these issues, this paper proposes a Hybrid Evaluation-based Genetic Programming (HE-GP) for effectively solving UAEOSSP. A Hybrid Evaluation (HE) mechanism is integrated into the policy-driven OSA, combining exact and approximate filtering modes: exact mode ensures evaluation accuracy through elaborately designed constraint verification modules, while approximate mode reduces computational overhead via simplified logic. HE-GP dynamically switches between evaluation models based on real-time evolutionary state information. Experiments on 16 simulated instance sets demonstrate that HE-GP significantly outperforms handcrafted heuristics and single-evaluation based GPHH, achieving substantial reductions in computational cost while maintaining excellent scheduling performance across diverse scenarios. Specifically, the average training time of HE-GP was reduced by 17.77\% compared to GP employing exclusively exact evaluation, while the optimal policy generated by HE-GP achieved the highest average ranks across all scenarios.

An effective Genetic Programming Hyper-Heuristic for Uncertain Agile Satellite Scheduling

This paper investigates a novel problem, namely the Uncertain Agile Earth Observation Satellite Scheduling Problem (UAEOSSP). Unlike the static AEOSSP, it takes into account a range of uncertain factors (e.g., task profit, resource consumption, and task visibility) in order to reflect the reality that the actual information is inherently unknown beforehand. An effective Genetic Programming Hyper-Heuristic (GPHH) is designed to automate the generation of scheduling policies. The evolved scheduling policies can be utilized to adjust plans in real time and perform exceptionally well. Experimental results demonstrate that evolved scheduling policies significantly outperform both well-designed Look-Ahead Heuristics (LAHs) and Manually Designed Heuristics (MDHs). Specifically, the policies generated by GPHH achieve an average improvement of 5.03% compared to LAHs and 8.14% compared to MDHs.