Design and Analysis of a Cable-Driven Deployable Cylindrical Mechanism

This paper presents the design of a deployable cylindrical mechanism which is driven by cable. The deployable mechanism can be deployed to approximate a cylindrical surface and be folded into a compact bundle. Construction of the cylindrical surfaces with Bennett linkages is introduced. Geometric shape of the connecting bars and structure of the joints are designed for compact bundle-folding configuration and avoiding the interference. Position kinematics of the mechanism is solved. Cable system is designed to drive the mechanism to deploy. A direction-changeable mechanism used for cable pulleys is proposed and the optimal design parameters are obtained. A ground experimental prototype is fabricated to validate the proposed design and to show the feasibility of the designed mechanism.