L.Garde aims to be a world leader in the development of inflatable and deployable structures for terrestrial and space applications. L.Garde is focused on providing agile and responsive research and development services to its customers. L.Garde was founded in 1971 in Orange County, CA to support ballistic missile defense through the development and manufacture of inflatable targets and decoy systems. Since that time L.Garde has developed a wealth of knowledge about deployable space systems that include targets and countermeasures, deployable space antennas, in-space propulsion, deployable space structures, and deployable terrestrial systems.

We draw on over 40 years of successful research and development, including more than 150 objects flown in space, to develop:
• Lightweight deployable structures for use in terrestrial and space applications.
• Effective and efficient analytical methods for modeling large displacement structures.
• Sophisticated test and integration tools to provide the highest quality product possible.

L.Garde has made significant investments in state-of-the-art tools to assist in the design and manufacturing lightweight space structures:

Laser Cutting: L.Garde's suite of specialized hardware includes an automated laser cutting machine. It is a one-of-a-kind device custom built for L.Garde. It can cut flat objects 60 feet long by 5 feet wide. Its 150 watt infrared laser can cut anything from plastic films to thin metals with precision. The materials are held in place by a vacuum chuck powered by three massive blowers.

Vibration: L.Garde maintains its own vibration table for qualification and acceptance testing. At the time it was built, this was the largest air-cooled shaker table available. The shaker table can be configured to operate in three axes. It is shown with a fixture mounted horizontally. The switching power amplifier can be seen in the background. When the shaker is at full power, it draws 90,000 watts.

Material Testing: L.Garde has a staff dedicated to material identification, laminate fabrication, and testing. We have a dedicated lab for assembly and testing of materials. Pictured below is a tensometer which is used to determine the characteristics of the various lots of film we use.

Environmental Testing: L.Garde has a suite of testing equipment including thermal cycling chambers, ovens, vacuum pumps and chambers, and data acquisition systems. This equipment allows L.Garde to perform an entire contract from concept to delivery in house.

Photogrammetry: L.Garde has a non-contact system for measuring the exact X, Y, Z coordinates of objects of any size to a precision of 0.001 inch (for a 10 foot diameter object). This system is completely photographic and never touches the object being measured. About a dozen pictures from various vantage points are taken of the object to be measured. Up to 1000 points on the object are correlated to each other in the multiple pictures. A computer program is then used to find the shape of the object that would uniquely result from the position of all the points seen from the various positions. Photographic data is gathered with a rare monochrome digital camera with a resolution of 3060 x 2036 pixels. A monochome camera is used to avoid the position error introduced by the Bayer filter interpolation in most color digital cameras.

Material Testing: L.Garde has a long heritage of analytical capabilities especially in the area of light-weight structures that include large, deployable, and ultra-thin membrane structures. L.Garde uses a range of computational tools to complement our highly talented human capital with years of accumulated specialized knowledge and skills.