Review on Patents about Mechanical Design Technologies of Next Generation Super Large Radio Telescope

Based on the state-of-the-art of Arecibo 305m diameter telescope, an innovative design was proposed by the author ten years ago to build the next generation large radio telescope. In the design, a cable supporting system with 6 long reach cables is utilized to move the feed in space, which works in the same way as parallel cable-driven robots. In order to achieve the desired position precision of the feed, a fine-tuning Stewart platform is added to the cable supporting system. Due to the long reach of the cable and high feed position precision, cable curve needs to be carefully accounted for. Because of the low stiffness of the cable supporting system, the interaction between the cable supporting system and the Stewart platform is also a problem to solve. A series of key technology researches have been done, and both 5m and 50m demonstrate models are built to validate the proposed design. At the same time, several relevant patents have been issued. This paper intends to make an introduction and discussion about this. /P>