An Approach to Designing Origami-Adapted Aerospace Mechanisms

An approach to designing products based on adapting patterns and behaviors from origami is presented. The approach is illustrated by showing its capability for developing mechanism applications for aerospace-based systems. Origami has several attributes that are sought after in aerospace designs, such as deployability, stowability, and portability. The origami-adapted design process seeks to facilitate designers in reliably adapting origami into useful products that achieve desirable attributes. The origami-adapted design process is illustrated and tested using three examples of preliminary design: an origami bellows to protect the drill shafts of a Mars Rover, an expandable habitat for the International Space Station, and a deployable parabolic antenna for space and earth communication systems. Each of these examples starts with an origami fold pattern and modifies it to fulfill specific needs for an aerospace-based product.