A Shape Design Method Of Large Space Deployable Paraboloid Antennas

Paper number

IAC-07-C2.I.03

Author

Prof. Fu-Ling Guan, Zhejiang University, China

Coauthor

Dr. Jianjun Shou, Zhejiang University, China

Coauthor

Dr. Xiao Xiao, Zhejiang University, China

Year

2007

Abstract

There will be array parabolic antennas or directly-radiating array antennas set on the satellites to get shaped beams. These two kinds of design methods mean the optimization of the parameters of the prompting coefficients and geometry array coefficients. One of the most important parts is the shape-forming network, which is to adjust the feed. But when the frequency increases there will exist two negative factors in the network, firstly with the increasing of the frequency, the construction and adjustment will be more complex and the fee will increase greatly, secondly the radio-waste will also increase. So when there needs a overlay for a certain area, another method will be used to replace the beam- forming network, which will design a new reflector for it. At the same time, single-feed-single-reflector can also act and works well and replace the two methods mentioned above and it can lead to good result. This method needs no electronic adjustment and costs less and the radio-waste will be low too.
  Later there are scholars who brought forward front-wave method. Then based on this North American scholars and European scholars, direct and indirect method for the designing of reflector with the application of the theory of Geometry Optics, Physics Optics and etc. were brought forward. The optimized object of the direct method is the shape of the reflector itself. The reflector will be described by some functions and the result is that proper coefficients will be chosen for the functions so that the reflector will form. The objects of the indirect method are the characteristic parameters of the shaped reflector, such as front-wave, caliber field distribution. The optimizations of these will help to find a certain reflector to satisfy the certain needs.
  Base on traditional shaped theory, research group advanced two new methods: (1)The reshaping of the firstly-shaped-Cassegrain antennas will be a new method of shaping. And by this way a new shaped reflector will be got, which has not only of the virtues of the Cassegrain antennas but also make full use of the grid methods, so that the main and subordinate reflector will be shaped to realize the expected overlay on a certain region. (2)Research group associate the deformation of the reflector with the  shape requirement of far-field sampling points by deducing the physical and geometrical optics theory, then the modification scheme of traditional caliber-plane-phase-optimization method is applied. With this method, the reflector surface of shaped antenna can be ascertained directly. The feasibility of these two methods is proved by numerical computation.
  This paper describes the design, production of the experimental model and the test results of the deployable mesh type reflector antenna which can be boarded on a small satellite to achieve high data rate communication via small satellite. Manufacturing the whole deployment mechanism part, and the reflector design were performed and the deployment test as the whole antenna was carried out last year. And also both computer aided simulations of dynamics under deployment and vibration test of whole antenna system were performed.

Abstract document

IAC-07-C2.I.03.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-07-C2.I.03.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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