Reflector design and precision measurement of inflatable antenna

In order to obtain a high precision inflatable antenna reflector,a conformal design based on the membrane theory and elastic mechanics was done to compute the numerically exact undeformed geometry with known design inflatable pressure and the deformed parabolic geometry.Based on the no-stress shape,cutting-pattern design was done to gain the shape of gores,and the pieces of surface were flatted using an improved spring-mass system,then the pieces of gores were seamed to form a high precision inflatable reflector.A 2 m ground demonstration space antenna reflector was design and manufactured using the proposed method.A non-contact photogrammetric measurement system was built using PhotoModeler software packages.The steps of reflector precision measurement of ultra-lightweight space structures were introduced on three experiment postures.A high precision inflatable reflector was achieved after repeat precision measurement and shape adjust,and the final root mean square of the reflector in experiment posture 1 was 1.83 mm.