Approximate theory for radiation from mesh reflectors

Reconfigurable shaped reflector antennas have potential applications in satellite communications and satellite broadcasting. When a metallic mesh is employed pillowing occurs between the points at which the reflector is constrained. The letter describes an approximate theory to explain the behaviour, and results are obtained which are in good agreement with exact analysis. The new theory allows key features to be identified which show that the principal effect is to produce gain loss, and furthermore that for an isotropic mesh tension does not influence this loss