A piecewise deformable subreflector for compensation of Cassegrain main reflector errors

Author

Lawson, Peter R. ; Yen, Jui Lin

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Toronto Univ., Ont., Canada

Volume

36

Issue

10

fYear

1988

fDate

10/1/1988 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1343

Lastpage

1350

Abstract

The subreflector presented is built of an aggregate of rigid panels, which are controlled by a small number of actuators. An algorithm is described to calculate the actuator motions for a set of given surface distortions. It is assumed that the surface distortions, at different elevation angles, are known a priori. Geometrical optics is used to describe the aperture field distribution and to predict the improvement in performance. Computer modeling of main and subreflectors was used to test the design. This design is suggested for the improvement of a hypothetical radio telescope. In this example, it is predicted that the effective surface errors, due to gravitational distortions, may be reduced to 33% of their uncorrected level with a 48-plate subreflector. Compensation with other subreflector configurations is also investigated

Keywords

antenna reflectors; antenna theory; errors; radiotelescopes; Cassegrain main reflector errors; actuators; antennas; aperture field distribution; geometrical optics; gravitational distortions; piecewise deformable subreflector; radio telescope; surface distortions; surface errors; Actuators; Aggregates; Apertures; Computer errors; Geometrical optics; Optical design; Optical distortion; Radio astronomy; Reflector antennas; Telescopes; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-926X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/8.8619

Filename

8619