New Deployable Truss Concepts for Large Antenna Structures or Solar Concentrators

Three types of newly proposed deployable concepts, Spatial Diagonal-stiffened Truss (SDT), Sliding Hinge Double Fold-II ( SHDF-II), and Deployable Solar Concentrator (DSC), are described. The SDT and the SHDF-II are two-dimensional deployable truss structures that can be applied to large antenna structures; whereas the DSC is available for large solar concentrator systems. Typical advantages of the SDT and the SHDF-II are their good packaging efficiency and the small number of mechanisms necessary for deployment and/or folding. The SDT has the best packaging efficiency among existing deployable concepts while the SHDF-II has the smallest number of deployable mechanisms (0.25 per module). The DSC is a deployable truss structure with rigid reflector plates. The DSC has the advantage of being able to deploy large-size concentrators automatically. Functional test models of both the SDT and the DSC were fabricated and tested. The test results showed the practicality of the concepts by demonstrating smooth and consistent deployment movement.