Improvement of a Shape Accuracy Considering the Characteristics of Cable Network Systems for Large Mesh Antenna Reflectors

This paper addressed cable network configurations to improve surface accuracies for large mesh antennas. In this study, we focused on manufacturing error, assembling error, and sensitivity to displacements of support points. To facilitate accuracy management by the lengths of cables, high stiffness cables were used in surface cable network. Then, low stiffness cables were used in other cables. The effect of the lengths of errors was estimated by analysis and experiments for a test model. Micro-gravity test was also executed to estimate the accuracy of shape adjustment on ground. The sensitivity is calculated under some variations of cable stiffness. From the results, it is clarified that the proposed configuration can reduce the surface distortion and keep high surface accuracy.