Design And Analysis Of The Petal-inspired Space Deployable And Foldable Mechanism

With the rapid development of satellite communication,space exploration and earth observation technology,the application requirements of space deployable and foldable mechanisms becomes more and more urgent.The development of space deployable and foldable mechanisms technology puts forward higher requirements for the mechanism that foldable small space,expanding large size,high precision work and flexible fold.Based on the principle of bionics and observing the process of flower blooming,this paper finds out the commonality of flowers and space deployable and foldable mechanisms and conceives a kind of petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanisms.In this paper,the design analysis,theoretical methods and applied research of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism are studied.Firstly,through the observation of the process of flower opening,it is found that the space deployable and foldable mechanism and the flower have the common characteristics,that is,they have ability to fold and expand.The petal morphological features and the open process characteristics are abstractly extracted,a kind of petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanisms are conceived by a regular polygon as the stamen and the planar deployable unit of the five bar linkage and the spatial deployable unit of the crank slider mechanism as the petal.The degree of freedom of the foldable unit and the mechanism are obtained by the modified G-K formula.Take the eight-petal flower as the bionic object,the three dimensional model of the bionic mechanism is constructed.Secondly,the genetic theory is introduced into mechanism and a configuration transformation matrix is constructed with the characteristics of kinematic pair features,component features and connection relationships between components.Based on this matrix,a metamorphic equation is constructed which can express the three metamorphic modes:the type of kinematic pairs change,the number of kinematic pairs change and the orientation characteristic of a single kinematic pair change.The configuration transformation matrix and metamorphic equation are used to describe and analyze stable states and metamorphic states of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanisms.Thirdly,to obtain its sub-functions solution,the function analysis of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism is carried out by the principle of functional analysis.Besides,the scheme design of the sub-functions solution is carried out.According to the biological gene is extended to the field of mechanism,the paper giving the concept of mechanism-gene and the relationship diagram of the mechanism-gene variation and metamorphic mode.The deployable unit(planar deployable unit and spatial deployable unit)are carried out configuration synthesis and obtained various configurations by the metamorphic mode of gene mutation.In order to achieve the overall folding function of the mechanism and meet the locking and unlocking requirements of the mechanism,a variety of kinematic pairs,multi-DOF joints and locking-unlocking joints are designed.After the configuration of each deployable unit and the screening of each joint,5 kinds of planar deployable unit,1 kind of spatial deployable unit,2 kinds of the design scheme of kinematic pair,2 kinds of the design scheme of multi-DOF joint,3 kinds of the design scheme of locking-unlocking joint and 36 kinds of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism are obtained.Fourthly,the coordinate system of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism is established.The kinematics analyzing model of the planar deployable unit,spatial deployable unit and petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism are established by using closed-loop vector method and the bar constraint equation.The positive and negative solutions of the position,velocity,acceleration and singular configuration of mechanism are solved.In order to verify the correctness of the kinematics analyzing model,the simulation curves of the mechanism are obtained through numerical simulation and virtual simulation.It provides a reference for the control system design of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism.Finally,the driving device and auxiliary mechanism of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism is designed.Based on the framework of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism and with the help of the analysis of the structure and kinematic performance of space deployable and foldable mechanism mentioned above,it is applied to the engineering fields of the space deployable antenna,solar array and vehicle radar,so the virtual prototype model is designed and analyzed.The practicability and applicability of the petal-inspired space deployable and foldable mechanism is showed.