A Novel Spatial Mechanism for Deployable Structures

摘要

A novel close-loop over constrained spatial mechanism composed of eight hinge-jointed bars is introduced.In this paper,technical description of the mechanism is given.Base on the screw theory,the mobility of this mechanism is studied.Then a kinematic analysis of the mechanism is presented.It will be shown that,for having the particular geometrical relationships among the bars and axes of the joints,this mechanism can be thoroughly folded as a square and deployed as a cube.Such a mechanism would become an alternative form of deployable structures or as a possible unit in deployable networks both for applications in space technology and engineering.