The European ALMA Project - New design and technologies for

innovative performances
G. Marchioria*, F. Rampinia, P. Lapeyreb
a
European Industrial Engineering, Via Torino 65D/E, 30172 Mestre, Venice, Italy
b
Thales Alenia Space France, Avenue J.F. Champollion 26, 31037 Toulouse, France

ABSTRACT

The development process of the ALMA project from its first prototype phase to the present one of serial production, has
stimulated the development of concepts of innovative engineering and manufacturing design. The technologies adopted
such as the large use of composite materials, motorizations without contact (Direct Drive) etc, have allowed to obtain
extreme performances with reference to the scientific/environmental context. ALMA technologies represent a new
gateway for the astrophysical applications of the future.
Keywords: ALMA European Antennas, Manufacturing, Integration, Transport, On Site Assembly

1. INTRODUCTION
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is in construction in Northern Chile. The array consists of a large number
(up to 64) of 12 m diameter antennas and a number of smaller antennas, to be operated on the Chajnantor plateau at 5000
m altitude. The antennas will operate up to 950 GHz so that their mechanical performances, in terms of surface
accuracy, pointing precision and dimensional stability, are very tight. The need to transport and relocate them on the 200
or more antenna stations on the site generates mechanical and operational constraints.
The design, the construction and the delivery of the antennas was given in charge to the Alcatel and European Industrial
Engineering (EIE) Consortium (AEC Consortium) by ESO after that an antenna prototype had been successfully realized
and tested in May, 2004 [1]. On December ESO sign a contract with the AEM consortium constituted by Thales Alenia
Space France, Thales Alenia Space Italy , European Industrial Engineering and MT Mechatronics for the manufacturing
of 25 + 7 antennas.
In this paper, attention is given to the design feature of the antenna, while manufacturing activities are the main subject
of [2]. For a more detailed description, refer to [3] for direct drive motorization and to [4] for the antenna metrology.
Wavelength (m)
10-2 iO-4 106

.001

1010 1012 1014 1016

Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 1: Comparison between different antenna projects in terms of frequency and angular resolution

*
g.marchiori@eie.it; phone 0039 041 5317906; fax 0039 041 5317757

Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes II, edited by Larry M. Stepp, Roberto Gilmozzi,
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 A

(A) (B)
Fig. 2: The AEM antenna design: (A) virtual model and (B) section view of the antenna.

2. ANTENNA DESIGN OVERVIEW

2.1 Antenna Major characteristics
The ALMA Project is an international project for the realization of an astronomical observatory of 64 antennas,
operating in the millimetre and sub-millimetre wavelengths with frequency range extending from 30 GHZ to 950 GHZ.
Each antenna can be moved from its foundation by means of a special transporter [5] in order to assume different
configurations as predisposed by the Array Operational Site (AOS). The environmental conditions of installation and
operation are those of the Chajnantor plateau site at 5000 meters above the sea, in the Atacama Desert, in Chile [6].
Every antenna is a symmetrical paraboloid reflector of 12 m diameter with Cassegrain geometry, in an altitude over
azimuth mount (see Fig. 2). The subreflector is supported by feed legs in a quadripod configuration. It is remotely
adjustable with a servo-controlled mechanism for focusing and collimation. In the next paragraphs, a short description of
the design features of the antenna main components is given.
2.2 Azimuth structure
The azimuth structure of each antenna is made up of three main parts: the base structure with ALMA foundation
interface, the azimuth bearing assembly and the yoke structure with yoke arms, elevation bearing boxes and platforms
for access.
2.2.1 Base structure
The base structure (Fig. 3) is used to transfer loads from the elevation structure down to the foundation through flexible
supports. It includes an access door, the base floor and accessories for fixing the base to the ground. While the azimuth
brakes system, the azimuth cable wrap and its mechanism, the azimuth strip encoder and various metrology sensors are
housed inside the base, the azimuth drive system, the hard stops system and the azimuth stow pin are housed outside the
base.
The base structure is a steel structure, on the bottom fastened to the foundation by six stud bolts and six hydraulic nuts,
on the top with the azimuth bearing by a circular machined top flange. The cross section of the latter is designed in order
to keep the bearing in its theoretical circular shape and to ensure smoothness of rotation while maintaining stiffness.
Every component of the base structure is made up of steel plates of different thickness, cut and assembled through
welding. It is pre-machined individually and subsequently assembled one another using bolts, in order to obtain the
required tolerances.

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 azimuth azimuth azimuth
brakes drive
system system

slip ring

- interlace to
the ground Access door,

Fig. 3: Vertical section of the antenna base structure.

2.2.2 Azimuth bearing
The azimuth bearing is used to sustain the axial and radial loads, in order to minimize the radial clearance and to obtain
an adequate radial and tilting stiffness and a small friction torque. It is made up of a roller bearing and a special device
for transportation, handling and erection. 4 removable pins passing threaded holes are used to connect the outer and the
inner ring of the bearing and to control the radial deformations during the lifting, transport and assembly activities on the
radial support. Moreover, they are used to ease the bearing positioning and lifting.
The azimuth bearing is provided with a special system of seals able to assure low friction. In addition, a small quantity of
grease type Klueber Isoflex Topas NB 52, which presents a favourable behaviour to the low temperatures and few
maintenance (re-greasing every 4 years), is used to reduce the friction torque.
In order to maintain performances, a maximum planarity and eccentricity error of 0.03 mm in rotation will be allowed
during manufacturing and assembly operations.
2.2.3 Yoke structure
The yoke structure (Fig. 4.A) is used to transfer loads from the parabola down to the base structure through the azimuth
bearing. Its top surface provides mounting flanges for the elevation drive system (Fig. 4.B), guiding roller, hard stops,
brakes and the assembly of stow pins, which are mounted outside the arm with an appropriate covering. Metrology
equipments are mounted inside the yoke, thus they are protected by weather conditions completely. Openings in the box
structure gives access to inner components for disassembly and maintenance purposes.
.__&

Hard
stops

2
Guiding
roller

(A) (B)
Fig. 4: Virtual model of the (A) yoke structure and (B) zoom on the elevation drive system.

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 The yoke is a welded box girder construction integrated into a cylindrical extension at the base, used to connect the yoke
itself with the azimuth bearing. The azimuth bearing interface flange is flat machined, with a tolerance of 0.04 mm to
keep bearing smoothness. The elevation stub shaft mounting surfaces at the top of the yoke arms are level machined and
parallel to this azimuth bearing interface flange in order to control orthogonality. Components alignment is verified
during shop assembly.
Every component of the yoke structure is made up of cut and welded steel plates of different thickness. It is pre-
machined individually and subsequently assembled one another using bolts, in order to obtain the required tolerances.
2.3 Receiver cabin system
The receiver cabin (Fig. 5) is a unique block of CFRP (Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic) and plays a main role in
determine the antenna performances, since they are characterized by the static, dynamic and hydro-thermal behaviour of
the receiver cabin itself. Various metallic inserts or flanges are fixed on the receiver cabin to support the elevation
bearing, the back-up structure interface, the receiver interface, cabin lifting accessories, receiver lifting equipment,
bumpers and stow pins. In particular, 15 magnetic sectors supports of the elevation drive for the are bolted onto its
symmetrical plane. A floor is mounted inside the receiver cabin.
Every CFRP component is made of an external curved or flat skin stiffened by a set of ribs; the assembly is made using
angular profiles by means of glue and bolts. The whole box is than closed with a second skin. The same procedure used
for skins and ribs assembly is applied for the complete cabin system. After that, the metallic inserts or elements are
machined in order to obtain the required geometrical tolerances. Finally, some surface treatment are made: all the
internal surface of the receiver are flame-sprayed and covered with primer and white paint; all the external surfaces are
white painted.

Access door

(A) (B)
Fig. 5: Virtual model of the receiver cabin (A) front view, (B) rear view.

2.4 Back-up structure

The back-up structure (BUS, Fig. 7.A) is entirely made out of CFRP. The CFRP plates are largely made of a core of
unidirectional pitch carbon fibre, which, having a high thermal conductivity but a low expansion coefficient, guarantees
low temperature gradients in the structure and good dimensional stability under varying ambient temperature conditions
[7]. The external layers of the sandwich are protected against moisture by a coating film during lamination phase and
white painted after assembly phase.
The BUS is subdivided in 16 individual slices glued and bolted together under dimensional control by use of laser
tracker, in order to make possible the components moulding according to a pressure and temperature controlled cycle in
autoclave. No further finishing is necessary. Every slice includes one radial rib on one side and angulars for connecting
to next slice on the other side; rotating setting assembly jig allows to easily position and connect each slice to the next.

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 Fig. 6: Back-up Structure Slice and radial ribs assembly sequence.

2.5 Main reflector and panels technology

The panel system is made up of 120 honeycomb sandwich structure panels, subdivided into 5 rings and obtained using
high-precision electroforming nickel replication technology. They are designed in such a way that a nominal gap of 1.5
mm at 11.6C in either direction is achieved between two adjacent panels with respect to the reference size. No gap for
the inner diameter panel and outer diameter panel is provided.
The panel system is not painted on its surface, but requires a surface finish in order to prevent solar heating damage.
Requirements state that, when the antenna is pointed directly to the centre of the Sun, the power absorbed by a black
body anywhere in the secondary focal region must not exceed 0,3W/cm2 (reassumed over 1 cm2). Thus, values between
0.3 m and 0.45 m has been chosen for Ra, values between 2.0 m to 2.5 m for Rz.
Each panel is fixed to the BUS skin using five panels adjusters, see Fig. 7.B, one in every corner and one in the centre
pin of the panel. The four lateral adjusters have cut-outs in the centre pin in order to be able to compensate for the lateral
movement of the panels due to thermal expansion. They are design in such a way that the total thermal elongation due to
temperature changes, errors and deformation due to external loads is less than 5 m. Through a quasi-isostatic mount, the
adjusters level the reflector panels in order to minimize the distortion of the latter under environmental loads.
The accuracy after manufacturing activities is verified performing a tests campaign on a 3D measuring system with
panels simply supported at the five adjuster's interfaces without any constraint in the horizontal plane. Therefore, the
measured error is a combination of manufacturing errors and deformation due to gravity.

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 (A) (B)
Fig. 7: Virtual model of (A) the back-up structure and (B) the panel adjusters.
2.6 Apex equipment
As the receiver cabin system and the BUS, the apex structure (Fig. 8) is completely made out of CFRP. The CFRP used
is mainly unidirectional pitch fiber covered with pre-preg tissue to give lateral and local strength to the system. All joints
and inserts are manufactured with CFRP parts glued and cured to the CFRP profiles in order to maintain the requirement
of stiffness and lightness. The apex structure is designed to provide sufficient rigidity under every environmental
condition, in order to meet the pointing accuracy requirement. For the same purpose, the thermal expansion coefficient is
kept as low as possible.
The apex structure is supported by a quadripod oriented in the 45 and 135 degrees azimuthal plane. Every leg is a beam
of oval sections; cable ducts inside the leg ease the routing to the subreflector mechanism.
The latter is a hexapod system with six linear actuators, providing three translations and two rotation stages for the
subreflector mirror, to control focusing and collimation. In particular, V-joints guarantee tilting around two orthogonal
axes, while the third axis is defined by the linear actuator spindle. Thus, each linear actuator is singular checked in length
defining exactly one position of the lower flange in six degrees of freedom. Moreover, each actuator is equipped for a
hard stop, which limits the other run of about a millimeter in such a way that the spindle is not expelled when the
controller is not active. Performances in travel, speed and recurrent precision of adjustment are achieved with specific
detectors and diagnostics elements for operational conditions at 5000m.

linear . 'subreflector
actuator mechanism
control
subrefiector
mirror

(A) (B)
Fig. 8: Apex equipment: (A) Global view and (B) vertical section.

The subreflector mirror is a reflecting hyperbolic surface with properties that allow solar observation. In accordance with
the global thermal analysis, the thermo-optical properties resulting from the machined reflecting surface are:
- Absorptivity 0,35
- Emissivity 0.03

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 - Specular reflection : about 0,01
A scattering test is performed to assess the scattering properties of subreflector surface and to check the antenna
compliance with the solar observation capability specification. In order to not reduce the subreflector performances,
values between 0.3 m and 0.45 m has been chosen for Ra, values between 2.0 m to 2.5 m for Rz.
2.7 Azimuth and elevation motors
Direct drives are chosen for the azimuth and elevation motors. In this type of motorization, a C-shaped stator acts on a
rotating metallic disc where permanent magnets are embedded. The stator is made by two casted aluminium shells
spaced by reinforcing ribs, which stiff the structure not allowing it to buckle as a consequence of the alternate magnetic
forces. Copper coils are housed inside pockets, realized in the upper and lower surfaces of the stator and filled with under
vacuum resin. A layer of prepreg CFRP cover the surfaces; the adhesion between the carbon fibre and the stator surface
is optimal owing to the resin and to the prepreg matrix. On the elevation axis, the magnetic forces, given by the
permanent magnets, maintains the elevation structure pushed against guiding rollers, thus reducing friction and
consequent slip-stick effects. A thorough analysis of linear motor design and performances is made in [3].

Fig. 9: Drive System Motor coil segment and electronic Drives.

2.8 Control System
The Antenna Control System (called also Antenna Control Unit ACU) is based on a VME crate controlled by a single
board computer with Intel-CPU architecture. Commercially available communication and digital/analog input/output
boards provide the front end to external control system (Antenna Bus Mater - ABM), external sensors and driving units.
The control software runs under Linux RTAI with a standard Linux kernel. During remote control, the system is
controlled by means of a CAN bus communication port, which is part of the ABM interface.
An embedded terminal with diagnostic display and keyboard allows monitoring and controlling the Antenna from a local
user interface. Additionally, the antenna can be driven for maintenance by means of a portable control unit PCU.
For motion control, the ACU is interfaced to the Azimuth and Elevation encoders and to direct drive motors drivers.
Additional interfaces are provided for the metrology system that allows correcting the pointing errors due to structural
deformations that are not observable by the encoder system. Moreover, the control unit is linked to the various sensors
for the antenna alarms and diagnostics. Additionally, an Ethernet interface is available for software development and
maintenance purposes.
The ACU is mainly delegated to manage the pointing performances of the antenna; for this reason a deep servo analysis
and relevant simulation have been performed in order to identify possible critical areas and to implement all the
strategies. The ACU is also in charge of translating all the controls, queries and protocols coming from the ABM to the
various antenna sub-systems. The innovation in the ALMA ACU consists mainly on the field bus interfaces with the
elements constituting the axes servos (encoders and motors) with great capability of tuning and diagnostics due to the
fact that the software has been written oriented to such last possibility and not only by the functional requirements.
Indeed, inside the code, some sockets are embedded in order to extract all the needed parameters during start-up,
commissioning and possible upgrades. All these operations are possible without any source code modification and give
the opportunity to the AIV personnel to investigate over the functioning of the main elements, to plot the read parameters
and, in particular to inject torque disturbances to simulate the real external disturbances such as the wind spectrum.

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 CPL. iV3Th22U CowEcTIav PANEL

PSI) SW! TCff 45L07S SPARK

Fig. 10: ACU Local Monitor and Crate.

2.9 Metrology System
In order to fulfil the requirements, it is very important to characterize the uncertainty sources and to determine their
effects on the system. On the antenna design we detected two major sources of non repeatable errors that affect the
antenna performances: Errors due to thermal gradient on the steel structure and errors due to wind component. The
correction of these two sources of error is done via a metrology system.
The metrology system is based on two different measurement systems: the thermal metrology and the dynamic
metrology.
The thermal metrology is a system composed by 86 thermal sensors. Deformations induced by temperature distribution
are corrected via a correction matrix..
The dynamic metrology is base on two inclinometers. During the design and test phase we checked different metrology
system with different instruments and different locations. The main problem was the accuracy or the resolution or the
settling time of the instruments on one side, the rotation amplitude and in plane acceleration in the other. The final design
is based on two high accuracy inclinometers placed on the yoke base over steel plates thermally coupled with the yoke
structure. These inclinometers measure the rotations around elevation axis due both to thermal and to wind loads.

Fig. 11 Dynamic metrology system layout. Global overview.

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 In a first moment, it has been thought to use off-the-shelf inclinometers. The conclusion of the market survey performed
was that the available instruments are either very accurate but slow in response (or saturation recovery time) or with
large measurement range (in the degree range) but not sufficiently accurate for radio-astronomy applications. Therefore,
the feasibility of designing a custom device with specifications tailored for this application has been done.
Refer to [4] for a detailed review of this subsystem.

3. CONCLUSIONS
The work done by the AEM consortium on the ALMA project from its first prototype phase to the present one required a
large use of innovative engineering approach, technologies and manufacturing design. The material adopted such as the
composite materials, motorizations without contact (Direct Drive), new inclinometer concept have allowed obtaining
extreme performances with reference to the scientific/environmental context. The AEM design and research on new
technologies represent a new gateway not only for the ALMA application but also for the astrophysical applications of
the future.

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
European Industrial Engineering Italy on behalf of AEM Consortium would like to express its special thanks to ESO,
especially to Mr. S. Stanghellini and his team, for their support done during the design, manufacturing and acceptance of
the first metrology prototype and today production phase.

REFERENCES
[1]
Mangum, J. G., Baars, J. W. M., Greve, A., Lucas, R., Snel, R., and Wallace, P. T., Evaluation of the ALMA
Prototype Antennas, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Ref. arXiv:astro-ph/0609329v1;
September 2006.
[2]
Apers, M., Marchiori, G., Gennaro, C., Emde, P., Lapeyre, P., Suita, M., Giacomel, L., Stanghellini, S., Couteret, C.,
Manufacturing and on site assembly of the European ALMA production Antennas a status report, paper AS08-
AS03-143, this volume.
[3]
Giacomel, L., Manfrin, C., Marchiori, G., Venturini, M., The European ALMA Production Antennas: new drive
applications for better performances and low cost management, paper AS08-AS03-146, this volume.
[4]
Rampini F., Marchiori, G., Gennaro, C., Biasi, R.,Stanghellini, S., Ghedin, L., The metrology system of the
European ALMA Project: thermal and wind pointing error corrections, paper AS08-AS03-140, this volume.
[5]
ALMA Antenna Transporter, ANTD 34.00.00.00-37.00.00.00-A-ICD, Internal Document
[6]
ALMA Environmental Specification, ALMA-80.05.02.00-001-B-SPE, Internal Document
[7]
Lapeyre, P., Rampini, F., Suita, M., Damiano O., Apers, M., The European ALMA Production Antennas: extended
applications of CFRP materials for high scientific performances, paper AS08-AS03-144, this volume.

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