The performance of petal antennas is often hampered by deployment errors, a prominent form of error that has significant implications on radiation performance, and surface errors. Traditional calculation methods often overlook the relationship between errors on individual petals, thus leading to an overestimation of the interval calculation. This study presents a novel interval analysis method based on an ad hoc auxiliary formulation to effectively manage the influence of deployment angle error. The proposed methodology addresses the overestimation issue inherent in the interval estimation, offers a more straightforward computation process, and presents potential synergy with antenna shaping techniques to enhance antenna design. The validity and efficiency of this method are corroborated through several representative numerical examples.

This work presents an interval analysis (IA) based method for the tolerance analysis and robust design of shaped reflector antennas generating contour beams. First, the expression of the power pattern of the contour beam is properly defined in terms of the azimuth and elevation angles and the Cartesian IA (CIA) is then used to derive the lower and upper bounds of the corresponding interval function. The reliability of the proposed CIA tolerance method is analyzed through a set of representative numerical examples including random surface deformations of the reflector surface. Finally, the Particle Swarm Optimizer (PSO) is integrated with the CIA-based interval analysis method for the robust design of shaped reflector antennas. The robustness of the obtained solutions is validated against the results from analytic Monte Carlo simulations and the commercial solver GRASP.

This article presents a heuristic best-fitting-paraboloid (BFPH) method, tailored for reflector antennas subject to gravitational distortion. First, the best fitting problem is formulated a nonlinear least-squares problem (NLSP) for the distorted reflector, wherein three heuristic rules (DRs), crucial for the problem at hand, are derived based on two typical distortion modes observed in antennas. Then, a suitable optimization algorithm is employed to solve the NLSP, in which a customized strategy is developed for the definition of the initial value in order to guarantee effective and reliable final solutions. A set of numerical results are reported and discussed to demonstrate the superior performance of the BFPH method in comparison to existing state-of-the-art methods. More specifically, it supplies higher antenna gain, reduced pointing error, enhanced robustness, and better symmetry in the far-field pattern.

Rigid-reflector spaceborne antennas (RRSAs) are well-suited for high-frequency application scenarios due to their high surface accuracy. However, the low stowing efficiency of RRSAs limits the aperture diameters and further deteriorates the electromagnetic (EM) performances in terms of gain, resolution and sensitivity. After conducting systematic feature analysis with respect to several typical RRSAs, we propose a novel type of RRSA to solve the aforementioned problems. Inspired by the pose adjustment process for a higher stowing efficiency of traditional RRSAs, we also propose a new segmentation scheme of a reflective surface consisting of a deviation-angle panel that facilitates a higher stowing efficiency. Based on this scheme, its corresponding folded configuration is implemented by combining Euler’s rotation theorem and the idea of parameter identification. In addition, we also compare the stowing efficiency of different schemes to verify the high stowing efficiency of the configuration. Finally, we perform mechanism/structure design and deployment dynamics to demonstrate that the antenna can be successfully deployed and exhibits excellent deployment quality. The results suggest that the proposed antenna possesses higher stowing efficiency than that of the same kind, with a stable deployment and interference-free process.