Abstract: To overcome the drawback of no ability to realize the repeatable deploying and furling function for the available single folding umbrella antennas, a novel repeatable deploying and furling mechanism is proposed by combing rolling bearing and pin roll with lead screws and push boards, and a prototype is created and fabricated for experimental verification. The presented repeatable deploying and furling mechanism mainly consists of single folding ribs, a central hub, lead screws, upper and lower push boards, a restriction board, rolling bearings and pin rolls. Through the way of motors driving the lead screws to move back and forth, the push boards to move up and down, the rib root to roll between the upper and lower push boards, the rib to rotate around the pin roll and the restriction board to limit and lock the movement, the drawback of the single folding umbrella antennas is overcame, and the repeatable deploying and furling function of ribs is realized innovatively for the single folding umbrella antennas. The kinematic analysis of ribs is performed to obtain the angle, angular velocity and acceleration. Furthermore, the feasibility is verified by mechanical analysis for some key components. A prototype of 4 m single folding umbrella antenna is created and manufactured. Through the repeatable deploying and furling experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed novel mechanism is demonstrated.

Key words: umbrella antennas, repeatable deploying and furling function, mechanism design, experimental verification