Development of Tensioned Phased Array Structural Technologies

LGarde will develop a technology to enable the tensioning of planar phased array systems maintaining their planarity to within 1 mm rms.  This will mitigate the use of expensive and bulky metrology and RF compensation systems.  Effort will be focused on the cable-net configuration because of its low mass compared with other configurations.  The design concept will concentrate on the 10 m^2 and 50 m^2 arrays and will be tailored to meet input mission requirements from AFRL.  This design concept is scalable to much larger tensioned phased array systems greater than 40 m x 40 m.  LGarde recognizes the potential pay off of such structures and, hence, will fund the building of a subscale prototype using our IR&D funds. However, the testing of the prototype that includes measurement of its planarity, use it for packaging and folding exercises, and measure its stiffness and damping characteristics, will be carried out under the proposal work plan. BENEFIT: The tensioned cable-net systems that are envisaged maybe be used in both commercial and military applications. On the commercial level, these tensioned apertures are useful for marine, commerce, identification and tracking missions, Earth science radar, communications, imaging, and other remote sensing applications. LGardes approach to commercialize these systems includes partnering with the Air Force to develop cost efficient fabrication techniques and to market the apertures to the largest possible market.  Initially, the size of these structures would be small, from 10 m^2 to 50 m^2, but the success of Phase I will allow the development of larger systems in Phase II and Phase III. Therefore, further development of this hardware technology is essential to future space and Earth structures efforts. LGardes strategy is to demonstrate, to both space and Earth-bound projects, the validity and value of this study. In addition, it is expected that this technology will sell itself once fully developed. For the first time ever, the aerospace community will have tensioned structures that offer high performance compared with current backing structures. The study of the tensioned cable-net system in Phase I will demonstrate the capabilities of the technology and serve as a powerful marketing tool in itself.