Under-Gravity Surface Optimization of Antenna Mesh Reflector

Large-scale space deployable antenna is becoming more and more urgent with the improving demand in aerospace technology, which requires high surface accuracy of antenna mesh reflector. However, gravity has become one of the main factors that restrict the accuracy with the increasing of antenna aperture. To avoid flipping antenna or extensive experiments to eliminate the effect of gravity in engineering, a new surface optimization method is proposed. The initial vector and characteristic structure for iteration is discussed in detail to ensure the convergence. A tension structure and a typical antenna mesh reflector are simulated as examples. The results can well meet the requirement of surface accuracy.