Surface Control of Large Deployable Membrane Diffraction Antenna

Abstract

Large deployable membrane diffraction antenna plays a significant role in achieving high-precision remote sensing detection in the future owing to its super large aperture. In order to accurately adjust and maintain the primary mirror surface of the deployable diffraction antenna, a novel scheme of surface shape control has been proposed in this paper. In the scheme, the large deployable antenna is divided into several mirror units and each mirror unit is spread by braced frames. Besides, the membrane mounting units are controlled by six actuators with 6 degrees of freedom. The actuators which are low cost and applicable in complex environment are developed according to relevant control requirements. The designed actuators have the advantages of wide adjustable range (up to 21mm) and high precision (better than $0.16\mu m$), which is much better than the traditional piezoelectric actuator scheme, and the cost performance is higher than the adjustment scheme of optical telescope. Finally, the simulation results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed control scheme. The performances of the actuators are displayed by experimental tests.