Study on panel gradient estimation system for panel-structure solar power satellite/station

Abstract

A SPS (Solar Power Station / Satellite) is a gigantic satellite designed as an electric power plant and transmits the electricity via microwave to a receiving site on the Earth by using a phased array antenna. In Japan, a panel structure SPS was proposed. The panel structure SPS is difficult to maintain flatness of transmission antenna surface. Thus, we study on a microwave power beam correction method. In this paper, we describe a PAC (Position and Angle Correction) method. The PAC method is one of the beam correction methods for SPS. In previous study, we considered the PAC method with pilot signal receiving points and disregarded the size of signal receiving points. Thus, we designed the signal receiving antenna and considered the panel module configurations for using the PAC method. Additionally, we simulated the pilot signal phase measurement errors which are caused by the surrounding antenna elements on the panel module. From the simulation, if the signal receiving antenna is not adjacent to other signal receiving antennas and the phase measurement errors are enough small to use the PAC method.