High surface accuracy design of the electrostatically controlled deployable membrane antenna based on a thermoplastic forming method

There are significant theoretical and manufacturing errors when multiple planar diaphragms are pieced together to create large-diameter, high-curvature membrane reflectors. To address this challenge, a thermoplastic forming technique for creating doubly curved paraboloid membrane reflectors for the Electrostatically Controlled Deployable Membrane Antenna (ECDMA) is proposed. Initially, a creep model for the membrane reflector is developed using finite element analysis, and creep parameters of the membrane are determined through experimental testing. To validate the effectiveness of this thermoplastic forming technique, simulations and experiments are conducted on a membrane reflector with a diameter of 0.3 m. It is evident that the simulation results have good prediction for experiment results with errors under 5%. Furthermore, this method has been applied to a 2-m ECDMA prototype, demonstrating a surface accuracy improvement of over 70%.