Active Adjustment of the Subreflector Shape for the Large Dual-Reflector Antenna

Abstract

A shape adjustment method for subreflectors based on minimizing the residual wavefront error of the large dual-reflector antenna is presented. This method is used to compensate for the antenna structural deformation caused by environment loading. The shape of the subreflector is adjusted using actuators fixed under the panels. The shape adjustment response function for the subreflector shape and the actuators’ adjustment amount is established, which is based on the inverse distance weighting function, and then the control function of the subreflector shape is obtained. The actuators’ adjustment amount can be calculated using the least squares matrix transformation with the minimum residual wavefront error. Analysis of the experiment’s results shows the residual wavefront error and primary aberration are greatly reduced under different elevation angles, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified.