Analysis and experiment of the feed cable-suspended structure for super antenna

This paper presents design, analysis, and experiment of the feed cable-suspended structure for the next generation large spherical radio telescope. To begin with, considering the requirement of the orientation of the feed cable-suspended structure increased to 60deg from 40deg, optimization design of the structure is performed. Then, aiming at the drawback of weak twisting stiffness of the feed cable-suspended system, a method to add stable cables is proposed to enhance the twisting stiffness of the structure; and a great of experiments had been developed combining with the inner FAST model of 5-meter built in Xidian University, which demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method. Next, the qualitative and quantitative analysis of effect of the stable cables on electronic performance is made. In the end, the results of theoretical analysis, simulation and experiment show that the design project of the feed cable-suspended structure can be applied in large radio telescope with the diameter of 500 meters.