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.

不同形状和类型的无线电天线适用于不同的情况。例如，当需要对某些无线电仪器（例如射电望远镜）进行非常精确的校准时，喇叭形天线特别适合。这使得喇叭天线在微波频率的许多不同应用中非常受欢迎，它们的宽度只需几厘米（或几十厘米）。然而，在低频下，喇叭天线必须很大才能以同样的方式工作。这种大尺寸限制了它们的实用性，特别是对于有效载荷的尺寸和重量有限制性要求的太空应用。我们将开发一种折叠天线，它可以封装成相对较小且重量轻的形式，适合连接到航天器上，但在部署时折叠成大喇叭天线形状，适合低频应用。这将使从太空进行低频无线电测量变得可行。