Influence and experiment of cable-net manufacturing errors on surface accuracy of mesh reflector antennas

Cable-net structures are of substantial importance in the construction of large mesh reflector antennas. Owing to the inevitable errors in their manufacturing process, the reflector surface accuracy deteriorates. This study makes a comprehensive investigation of random manufacturing errors during constructing the mesh reflector antennas, and analyze its influence on reflector surface accuracy. Firstly, the sensitivity of reflector surface accuracy with respect to the random errors of the unstressed cable length is mathematically deducted. Secondly, a non-button connecting method is proposed and analyzed to reduce manufacturing errors. Thirdly, two physical experiment models based on 2.62-meter mesh reflector antenna are made. Finally, numerical examples and experimental tests are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with the traditional method, the proposed method can effectively reduce the influence of the manufacturing errors on the reflector surface accuracy. Moreover, the reduction in the sizes of the nodes also reduces the risk of entanglement of the mesh reflector antenna during the deployment process, and thereby improves the deployment reliability.