Squaring the Cube: Efficiently Stowed Deployable Mechanisms With Thick Rectangular Payload Panels

Abstract We develop and demonstrate two families of deployable mechanisms, the Yoshimura-Miura-ori and the Waterbomb-Miura-ori, that stow into an efficiently packed cube (or other rectangular parallelopiped), deploy into a planar square or rectangular array, and contain rectilinear payload panels with a uniform thickness and flat top and bottom surfaces. The stowed form achieves high volumetric packing efficiency, and the deployed form achieves a high duty factor. The mechanisms are demonstrated in hardware, and multiple versions are described.