Deployment analysis considering the cable-net tension effect for deployable antennas

This paper presents a cable-net tension analysis method during the deployment of deployable antennas. First, the dynamic model of a deployable antenna is established, and the influence of the cable-net tension on the deployment is discussed. Then, the mechanism analysis problem for the cable net during deployment is discretized to several instantaneous structural analysis problems. An elastic catenary element is used to model the tensioned/slack cable net, and an optimization method is adopted for the form-finding of the cable net. Therefore, the shape and the tension of each cable for each instantaneous condition can be calculated. Via synthesizing all of the discrete instantaneous analysis results, the time-dependent cable-net tension curve can be obtained and then applied to the dynamic model of a deployable antenna as external loads and can therefore achieve the dynamic property analysis for deployment. Numerical simulations and experiments demonstrate the validity and rationality of this method.