Paraboloidal Thin Film Inflatable Concentrators and their Use for Power Applications

This paper deals with a proposal to use thin film inflatable concentrators, currently used for propulsion, in other applications, such as power. Technology for precision paraboloidal thin film concentrators is becoming available for use as a byproduct of propulsion technology. The idea is to introduce the possibility of using this formerly strictly propulsion hardware to power photovoltaic (PV) cells. Several intensity profiles will be generated from an optical model and shown for thin film inflatable concentrators.