A new concept for solid surface deployable antennas

Abstract This paper presents a new class of rigid-panel deployable antennas. The antenna surface is divided into a series of panels, which fold by wrapping around a central hub. All connections between the panels are made by revolute joints. This new folding technique has significant advantages over previous concepts, both in terms of packaged size, and mechanical simplicity. Furthermore, the size and shape of the packaged reflector can be readily adapted to any particular set of mission requirements. A small hardware demonstrator, which has been designed, manufactured and successfully tested, is discussed in the paper.