Review article

The Development of Inflatable Array Antennas

John Huang

Abstract

Inflatable array antennas are being developed to significantly reduce the mass, the launch vehicle's stowage volume, and the cost of future spacecraft systems. Three inflatable array antennas, recently developed for spacecraft applications, are a 3.3 m × 1.0 m L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) array, a 1.0 m-diameter X-band telecom reflectarray, and a 3 m-diameter Ka-band telecom reflectarray. All three antennas are similar in construction, and each consists of an inflatable tubular frame that supports and tensions a multi-layer thin-membrane radiating surface with printed microstrip patches. These antennas demonstrated that inflatable arrays are feasible across the microwave and millimeter-wave spectrums. Further developments of these antennas are deemed necessary, in particular, in the area of qualifying the inflatable structures for space-environment usage.

Keywords

antennas; inflatable structure; planar arrays; reflectarray; spacecraft

Hrčak ID:

6736

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/6736

Publication date:

20.12.2002.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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