Optimal Allocation of Antenna Structural Tolerances Based on Reliability

Abstract

Surface accuracy of antenna structures which are widely used in communication, space exploration, and radio astronomy will be different from that which is desired, because of a variety of random factors, including operating altitude variation, structural member size tolerance, material property variation, assembly error, and dead load variation. In this paper a first-order second-moment approach is given for the prediction of the surface accuracy reliability. A synthesis procedure, using nonlinear programming techniques, of allocating tolerances in antenna structures to achieve the minimum cost for specified reliability and tolerance bounds is presented. The formulated optimal tolerance allocation problem is solved using the Generalized Reduced Gradient code, OPT, and numerical results are given for specific applications.