Expanding Origami Solar Panel Structure

The horus uses an expanding ring structure to unfold a solar membrane.

Expanding origami solar panel structure.

Because the habitat will have to be transported with a hercules plane and potentially later by a rocket there is very strict volume requirements. This well known origami fold was invented by japanese astrophysicist koryo miura. Space is a great place for a solar panel because you don t have to worry about nighttime and there are no clouds and no weather he said. It is low cost and the materials can handle harsh solar environments.

Brian trease at nasa s jet propulsion laboratory has been thinking about how it could be used in spacecraft. Howell said origami through compliant mechanisms is a perfect fit for space exploration. This type of origami has probably the greatest application potential in engineering structures 1 2 ranging from solar panels space mirrors and aircraft wings to robots because most materials used in these applications are relatively rigid. Solar power origami style nasa.

System must be lightweight and pack a large area of solar panels into a small volume for transport. Their 1 20th scale tabletop prototype expands to a deployed diameter of 4 1 feet 1 25 meters. To date all kinematic modeling of rigid origami treats the paper as having zero thickness. One technique that has been used for an origami inspired solar array is called a miura fold.

Applying origami principles on rigid silicon solar panels a material considerably thicker than the paper used for the traditional japanese art the byu conceived solar array would unfold to. The exterior of the habitat will be covered in solar cells to maximize the energy generation. From digestible origami pills that could provide alternatives to invasive surgery to solar panels that could be tightly packed in an aircraft and deploy after launch at the heart of origami s. Unfold it and you ve got a structure 82 feet 25 meters across.

A deployable structure is a structure that can reconfigure and change shape size mainly from folding and unfolding and has many applications from daily essentials e g umbrella vascular stents to solar panels for spacecraft. Origami inspired engineering is rapidly finding applications in technology moving beyond space based solar panels and self assembled manufacturing components to commercial products including.