Design and analysis of a novel large-span two-fold deployable mechanism

This paper presents a novel large-span two-fold deployable mechanism that is mainly composed of a multi-point driving mechanism and a ring-shaped deployable mechanism. The ring-shaped deployable mechanism is formed by plane networking and space networking with the scissor-shaped mechanism as the basic unit. First, the mechanism design of the deployable mechanism is introduced, and the structural analysis and optimization are conducted. Then, the kinematic and dynamic analysis of the deployable mechanism are established, and the corresponding simulation verification is performed, which can be used as the foundation of control and further optimization. Moreover, two aerospace application examples of the deployable mechanism including the satellite antennas and the space grasping of non-cooperative objects are illustrated. Finally, a control system of the deployable mechanism is designed and a physical prototype is fabricated. The deployable experiment verification is carried out to prove the deployable performance, and the results show that the deployable mechanism can be driven by one actuator to deploy stably and smoothly.