Two-Configuration Synthesis of Origami-Guided Planar, Spherical and Spatial Revolute–Revolute Chains

Abstract

This paper presents a topological and dimensional kinematic synthesis methodology that can be used to constrain the movement of kinematic planar, spherical, and spatial revolute–revolute dyads (RR dyads). The approach is inspired by a subcategory of origami called rigid origami, which deals with highly overconstrained spatial deployable linkages. An example is the Miura-ori folding pattern used to deploy solar panels in space. In addition to this application, this linkage also provides an interesting way to constrain general RR dyads so that they perform a single DOF motion. Here, these mechanisms are called origami-guided RR chains, and computer aided design models (CAD) of the planar, spherical and spatial type are presented. The dimensional synthesis approach allows us to constrain consecutive links using R or C joints so that the links satisfy two arbitrarily predefined task positions. This leads to what we call the two-configuration synthesis of linkages, and we examine a concrete synthesis procedure for an origami-guided spatial RR chain, which is also built using rapid prototyping. The procedure actually combines the two-configuration synthesis approach with the synthesis of the spatial TS dyad, and the paper provides an outlook on further ways to apply the two-configuration synthesis and also to synthesize the origami-guided RR chains.

Creating Rigid Foldability to Enable Mobility of Origami-Inspired Mechanisms

“…The same result is obtained if the system is modeled using Equation 4. This result does not hold when a crease not touching the edge of the pattern is split.…”

“…If creases in an origami crease pattern are treated as revolute joints and facets as rigid links, then the crease pattern has a corresponding rigid-link mechanism [3]. This approach enables the mechanism analysis and design approaches to be used to model origami motion, and it allows the centuries of creativity of origami artists to be used in the development of compact mechanisms with enhanced performance [4]. Rigid foldability is important to ensure mobility when an origami pattern is to be realized in rigid materials and represents a common design objective for origami-inspired engineering.…”

Lattice mechanics of origami tessellations

“…In contrast to conventional composites engineering, wherein methods generally rely on designing response based on the interaction between the constituent parts that compose the material, origamibased design injects novelty at the "atomic" level; even single vertices of origami behave as engineering mechanisms [14], providing novel functionality such as complicated bistability [15][16][17] and auxetic behavior [6,[11][12][13]. This generic property inspires the identification of origami tessellations with mechanical metamaterials, or a composite whose effective properties arise from the structure of the unit cell.…”