Abstract: In order to meet the urgent need for diversified and multi-functional deployable antennas in many major national aerospace projects, such as interstellar exploration, the fourth phase of lunar exploration project, and the industrial application of BeiDou, a deployable antenna structure composed of hexagonal prism and pentagonal prism modules is proposed. Firstly, the arrangement and combination rules of pentagonal prism and hexagonal prism modules on the plane were analyzed. Secondly, the spatial geometric model of the deployable antenna composed of pentagonal prism and hexagonal prism modules was established. The influence of module size on the antenna shape was then analyzed, and the kinematic model of the deployable antenna established by coordinate transformation. Finally, the above model was verified using MATLAB software. The simulation results showed that the proposed modular deployable antenna structure can realize accurate connection between modules, complete the expected deployment and folding functional requirements. It is hoped that this research can provide reference for the basic research and engineering application of deployable antennas in China.

Key words: space deployable antenna, support structure, rigid flexible coupling, kinematics analysis, numerical simulation