Performance of Partially Deployed Spaceborne Ultra-Wideband Miura-Ori Apertures

Abstract

Reconfigurable and deployable antenna arrays are required communications and remote sensing onboard small satellites/CubeSats. There is also a need for packing before launch due to the limited payload space for exo-atmospheric deployments. In this context, origami-based aperture packing and unpacking is relevant and attractive for low-volume storage. However, after several physical morphing cycles, origami apertures may not maintain the performance exhibited by fixed apertures. That is, origami-based antenna arrays are likely to suffer from reduced gain and polarization purity. Therefore, physical effects caused by origami folding should be analytically incorporated into the design. This paper proposes a statistical analysis to study the gain performance of deployable ultra-wideband Miura-ori apertures by including geometrical errors inherent to a partially deployed state. A closed-form expression of the gain degradation is derived and verified using full-wave simulations.