Winding strategy of driving cable based on dynamic analysis of deployment for deployable antennas

An optimization method for the winding strategy of the driving cable is proposed based on a dynamic analysis of the AstroMesh antenna deployment. First, considering the effects of the cable net and friction, the driving force for deployment is deduced according to energy conservation. Thereafter, an optimization model is constructed, with the objective of minimum deployment driving power, using design variables consisting of control parameters of the winding length curve of the driving cable; this curve is described by the Bezier curve. Moreover, corresponding to the winding process of the driving cable before and after optimization, deployment experiments for a 2-m aperture deployable antenna prototype are conducted. Finally, the validity and rationality of the optimization method are verified by comparing the simulation and experimental results.