What is it about?
Solar panels are now mounted on space structures to collect energy from space. These structures consist of ultralight thin shell frames, which allow folding and tight coiling, and deploy once they reach the target orbit. However, their deployment has been very challenging to control. In this paper we propose a novel scheme based on kirigami architectures. It is shown that the deployment is quasistatic and controllable by introducing a suitable interconnection architecture and by actuating in only four control points. This new concept ensures robustness of deployment with minimum actuation.
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Why is it important?
The results of this research show that the deployment of flexible thin-shell space structures can be carefully controlled. Adding this to their ability to satisfy mass and volume constraints, can widely extend their applications.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Novel Structurally Connected Architecture for Controlled Deployment of Elastically Foldable Flat Arrays, January 2025, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/6.2025-0813.
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