Pretension Design of Space Mesh Reflector Antennas Based on Projection Principle

Abstract

A pretension design method based on the projection principle is proposed for space deployable mesh reflector antennas. First, the equilibrium tension of the plane cable net structure is obtained by a force equilibrium method. Then, the obtained cable tensions of the plane cable net structure are projected to the spatial cable net reflector to obtain the spatial cable tensions. Finally, the implication relationship between the plane cable tensions and the tension distributions of front and back cable nets is revealed. A general analytical expression is deduced for the axisymmetric reflector, and an optimization model is established for the offset reflector. Some hoop truss deployable mesh antennas are examined as examples of pretension design. The uniform cable tensions and high surface accuracy of reflectors are obtained to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.