Deployed profile synthesis of deployable Bricard mechanism

Abstract

This paper deals with the geometric design of the deployable mechanisms based on intuitive projective approach. Firstly, the deployed and folded configurations for the spatial single-loop polygon structure is defined. Secondary, two special planes, the deployed plane and the folded plane, are defined based on the deployed and the folded configurations respectively. Then the geometric parameters of the deployable mechanisms can be determined by projecting the joint axes onto the deployed plane and folded plane, following which we can obtain the relative position of the adjacent two joint axes in one link. By employing the Bricard mechanism as an example, we show the detailed design procedures of the proposed design methodology for the geometric design of the single-loop and multi-loop Bricard-based deployable mechanisms.