Equilibrium Conditions of Class 1 Tensegrity Structures

Truth and Myths about 2D Tensegrity Trusses

“…Figure 2a shows the first structure under analysis. It is the most popular structure in the literature [8,12,[15][16][17][18]37,41,42,64,[67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78], usually referred to as "the simplest 2D tensegrity structure" [77]. It is a truss (T) with six elements (n = 6) and five degrees of freedom (d.o.f.…”

“…Because of the absence of the mechanism, these trusses are only structures with tensegrity features. The term "tensegrity" used for the above examples in the references [6,8,12,[15][16][17][18]20,37,41,42,64,[67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] is not sufficiently accurate.…”

“…(4) The struts do not contact with each other at their ends." Skelton et al [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] take a different approach. They introduce the concept of tensegrity configuration: "Configuration forms a tensegrity configuration if the given configuration can be stabilized by some set of internal tensile members, i.e., connected between the right bodies" [12] and classes of structural systems: "A tensegrity configuration that has no contacts between its right bodies is a class 1 tensegrity system, and a tensegrity system with as many as k right bodies contact is a class k tensegrity system."…”

Path planning for the deployment of tensegrity structures

“…Only bar-string configurations in a stable equilibrium will be called tensegrity structures. [2][3][4][5] If well designed, the application of forces to a tensegrity structure will deform it into a slightly different shape in a way which supports the applied forces. Tensegrity structures are very special cases of trusses, where members are assigned special functions.…”