Geometry reconfiguration of a reflector with an auxetic material surface

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for reconfiguring reflector geometries using an auxetic material with negative Poisson's ratio to achieve large-angle beam scanning through shape transformation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining coordinate transformation and auxetic materials for mechanically reconfigurable reflectors.

Findings

Successful reconfiguration from parabolic to offset shapes demonstrated

Auxetic material enables large deformation without damage

Coordinate transformation effectively controls surface geometry

Abstract

Mechanically reconfigurable reflectors can modify their geometries to realize large angle beam scanning. This paper studies a method for reconfiguring a reflector geometry from a standard parabolic shape to offset parabolic shapes with varies offset angles. To fulfil the geometry control, the coordinate change of the nodes on the reflector surface are studied with the coordinate transformation method. To accommodate the large deformation of the reflector surface, a negative Poisson's ratio (NPR) material is applied to the reconfigurable reflector.