Mechanical Vibrations on a Deployable Nanosatellite Antenna: SAR Performance Analysis
Published in 2024 18th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), 2024
Recommended citation: Austin, A. C. M., Pelham, T., Mencarelli, S., Tresoldi, A., Dabboor, M., & Neve, M. (2024). Mechanical Vibrations on a Deployable Nanosatellite Antenna: SAR Performance Analysis. In 2024 18th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) Article 10501343 (Proceedings of the European Conference on Antennas and Propagation). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). https://doi.org/10.23919/EuCAP60739.2024.10501343 https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/admin/files/435189420/EuCAP2024_template.pdf
The mechanical vibrations of a high-strain glass-fibre composite deployable X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antenna structure are investigated using a finite element method. The antenna is approximately 2 m×0.3 m , and exhibits natural frequencies at 2.8 Hz and 7.6 Hz. The radiation patterns for a reflectarray formed from the structure are calculated using a ray-tracing approach for the nominal and mechanically deformed cases. The mechanically deformed antenna pattern is defocused, and a SAR system model shows this reduces the signal-to-noise ratio of a point scattering target by approximately 6 dB.