Satellite SAR Antenna Deployable Structure Design and Kinematic Analysis

Abstract

Satellite SAR antennas are widely applied in earth observation. Deployable support structures (DSS) are key components for supporting and spreading such antennas. Given the improvement in observation resolution requirements, designing high-rigidity, large-scale, and simple-motion DSS has increasingly become necessary. This study presents two kinds of DSS with a single-wing design that can support four antenna panels and proposes two kinds of synchronizing mechanisms. The geometric model is established for solving the design parameters that are related to each other. These mechanisms are parametrically optimized to improve the stability of deployment. Kinematic simulation is conducted on the DSS, and results indicate that the deploying movement is smooth when two driving sources are used. The proposed DSS can be applied to support more large-scale SAR antennas, which is of great importance to improve observation resolution.