Studies of thermal deformation and shape control of a space planar phased array antenna

Large planar phased array antenna in space will inevitably occur deformation due to the space thermal environment, which could severely influence the pointing accuracy of the antenna. This paper focuses on the studies of thermal load and shape adjustment method of a planar phased array antenna structure. The finite element method is adopted both to develop the structural model and to obtain the steady temperature field of the antenna structure, based on which a novel shape adjustment method that utilizes cables as actuators is proposed. This method transforms the control problem into the optimization problem of the actuators placement. The optimal placements of actuators and the corresponding control forces are determined by using discrete PSO method and quadratic optimization method. A 100 meter scale antenna structure is presented as example to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method numerically. Simulation results indicate that this method could successfully control the thermally induced deformation of the structure and maintain antenna's shape accuracy.