PopHorn: A deployable folding horn antenna for low frequency space-based applications

PopHorn：适用于低频天基应用的可展开折叠喇叭天线

• 批准号: ST/Y509942/1
• 负责人: Philip Bull
• 金额: $ 64.02万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FY509942%2F1
• 关键词: PopHorn; deployable; folding; horn; antenna

Different shapes and types of radio antennas are useful in different circumstances. Horn-shaped antennas are particularly good for when a very accurate calibration of some radio instrumentation (e.g. a radio telescope) is needed, for example. This makes horn antennas very popular for many different applications at microwave frequencies, where they only need to be a few centimetres (or tens of centimetres) across. At low frequencies, a horn antenna would have to be gigantic to work in the same way however. This large size limits their usefulness, particularly for space-based applications where there are restrictive requirements on size and weight of the payloads. We will develop a type of folding antenna that can be packaged up into a relatively small and lightweight form suitable for attaching to a spacecraft, but which folds out into a large horn antenna shape when deployed, suitable for low-frequency applications. This will make it practical to do very high precision radio measurements at low frequencies from space.

在不同情况下，不同形状和类型的无线电天线很有用。例如，当需要对某些无线电仪器进行非常精确的校准（例如射电望远镜）时，喇叭形天线特别适合。这使得Horn天线在微波频率下在许多不同的应用中非常受欢迎，在这些应用中，它们只需要在跨越几厘米（或数十厘米）的情况下。但是，在低频下，角天线必须以相同的方式工作。这种大尺寸限制了它们的用途，尤其是对于有效载荷大小和重量有限制要求的空间基础应用程序。我们将开发一种折叠天线，可以将其包装成一个相对较小且轻巧的形式，适合连接到航天器上，但是在部署时将其折叠成大喇叭天线形状，适用于低频应用。这将使在空间低频上进行非常高的精确无线电测量是可行的。