Antenna pointing mechanism for steerable spot beam antennas

摘要

The Antenna Pointing Mechanism (APM) was developed in the frame of a research and development program dedicated to geostationary Ka band communication antennas. At the end of the development phase, an APM qualification model was built and successfully tested. One of the main development goals was to establish a design not only accommodating the reference Ka band antenna, but fit for a Antenna of potential applications and antenna configurations at low recurring costs. Figure 1 shows the Antenna Subsystem configuration that formed the basis for the APM development. This paper discusses the chosen technical approach and mechanism features on the basis of the established requirements as well as the issues encountered during the development and test phase.